The Candid Life of Meena Dave

by Namrata Patel

Identity is something most of us examine at some point in our lives. It is universal to feel comfortable or uncomfortable in our bodies, our skins, our commonness, and our otherness.

Everything was temporary. She’d learned that from a Buddhist monk in Burma. She’d adopted it as her mantra. When her mind wandered to what had once been, she’d rein it back to the present. For now, she was here, and she had things to do.

She wanted a look around, and her camera helped her see better.

Books where the parents looked like hers, but she didn’t resemble the children.

“You don’t pick battles; you just outlast them.”

They say spring is the perfect time for lovers. I disagree. There is something about prewinter coziness that makes you want to cuddle up with someone.”

It had been a long time since she’d been expected home.

The assignment felt like a means to an end. She didn’t feel her usual spark of interest, her joy at finding the right shot to convey the message.

“You haven’t lived if you are not trying to forget.”

“It’s our family motto. We believe in making mistakes and having regrets. As long as it hurts no one.”

“I have scars as my memories. To fear is to torture yourself.”

And don’t be afraid, já? You will survive it.”

Space was infinite and empty, but her father would say that it was full of matter. Meena had interpreted that as meaning it was full of what mattered.

Does it matter where the apostrophe goes if you understand the meaning from the sentence?

Hope is a noun. So is murder.

From the aunties, she’d learned some in-culture things like that Indians do not say naan bread. Naan is a type of bread like a bagel or baguette. And it’s not chai tea because chai literally means tea.

Aloneness was a choice, but loneliness felt different. A disconnection from others that felt more like a condition of how she lived her life.

“The thing about complications,” Sam said. “Avoiding them doesn’t always work.”

“When we don’t understand the whole, we tend to fill in the missing pieces, like a sentence you can read even when it’s missing all of the vowels.”

Every adoption starts with a loss.

Her mother used to say that people who lived near water were more kind. When you make your own home, try to have one near a river.

“I hope we never stop being fifteen when we like someone.”

Meena was amazed that these women continued to learn, to improve in ways they believed made them better. It was never too late to fix yourself.

aashrae,”

Andaaz?

“Intent and motive say more about a person than their action.”

We left for school, came back, did homework, ate, and repeated it over again the next day, every day. Alone. Always alone. I had to figure out how to stop drowning in my tears. How to find a way to live without the only people who loved me, live without pictures or favorite clothes. Do you know what’s left after an explosion? Debris and ashes.

“Not particularly. We loved her, but Neha wore bitch as a badge of honor.”