This is my newsletter #34: Ananya Broker Parekh
Of corners we dwell in
Dear Reader,
While I write you this letter, my neighbour is waving at me with her muddy hands, crouched between a plant that’s flowering and another that’s suffering a fungal infection. It’s been a year since I’ve seen her work tirelessly in her garden every time I pass by the window. Pausing to find the words I’m looking for, I look up at the ceiling. In a corner, a spider is spinning a shiny web, moving rapidly to make it wider. My phone pings repeatedly to reveal a recipe of my aunt’s successful kimchi experiment, and a photograph of my friend doing a headstand for the first time. It’s been over a year since the pandemic turned our worlds upside down and inwards, making us carve out spaces for just ‘us’ to dwell in within the confines of our homes.
It’s been a year since I came back home. For the past four years, home was a pitstop. A space I shuttled in and out of. My room was always mine, but it also became everyone else’s since I was away.
It served as a warehouse for all the spare parts of my family’s lives that didn’t have anywhere else to belong. Meanwhile, the life I had made on my own sat in a locked hostel room in Bangalore. My room here at home felt empty, not because it was but because I hadn’t lived in it enough. A few weeks later, the illusion that I was going back to finish my semester faded. Permanence glared at me, asking me to embrace it. So I did. I made my first ever furniture investment promising that I’d use it for work. I bought myself a chair. And my mum brought out a lamp. And as it often goes, this corner became everything apart from what it was supposed to be.
It started off as a space where I read picture books. Here is an old favourite I often visit when things don’t turn out the way I imagine them to. Meet Julian, who you’ll come to love if you don’t already, and Kobi who knows exactly what to do with an idea. This is one of the most heartwarming books I've read yet, about a boy with a stutter and his father who compares the way he speaks to a river. While I read, Fatoumata Diawara’s Sowa and Kele often play on loop in the background.
As the chair becomes more familiar, it holds an occasional post-errand bag, or a shirt I was too lazy to fold. A cloth reindeer sits on its arm; a Christmas present from a friend I wish lived closer by. It begins to become a place where I hold on to joy. Joy in the moments he captures, in the pictures she makes, travelling through buildings and meeting all the people she draws. The joy of them singing, together.
Holding on to joy also meant archiving a whole bunch of recipes, since monotony and boredom sometimes causes poha and pasta to taste alike. There are few I tried once and never again, while some, I keep going back to. Among those is this pineapple upside down, an all-time favorite comforting one. I swap the canned cherries for walnuts that become chewy-melty bits when baked. There’s also this deliciousness that you can eat in one sitting. Hot. Spoon it straight out of the baking tin. Top with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream. Marion’s toasted chili garlic oil is a regular condiment in my fridge. It’s good on eggs, drizzled over pizza, ramen or a cheese toast. Nearly everything.
This corner is also where I bookmark things I’d like to try out in the future. Like this chocolate almond torte I’m going to bake next week. And learning how to play the ukulele so I can sing and strum for all the babies in my life like she does someday. And wearing a pair of rollerskates instead of shoes and going everywhere in them when the world opens up. But until then, I’ll keep watching him make a life roller-skate dancing. Indeed, the world is full of possibility!
Now I’m off to make this for breakfast. It’s so yummy I could eat it everyday. You should make it too!
I’ll leave you with my morning song. Have a lovely Sunday :)
Warmly,
Ananya Broker Parekh. When I’m not on my chair, I’m usually drawing @ananyabrokerparekh