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Today I am very pleased to introduce the first of several guess columnists who are going to write occasional posts here at The Sixth Sense. Deana Watson is a great friend of me and my wife Rachel. We have known her and her husband Steve for several years now and they are some of our closest friends. We met through the blogosphere originally, but we have seen holidayed together in California and they have stayed with us in England three times.
Deana has had more than her fair share of life’s trials to go through and she has such a depth of wisdom and life perspective that I am always encouraged, challenged, and refreshed by. Deana has a particular passion and interest in other cultures and I’m sure you’ll see that come through in her posts.
Anyway, enough from me, over to Deana. Enjoy!
PS Make sure you check out Deana’s own blog here: http://obahsomah.blogspot.com/
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My friend asked me last week if I ever read fiction. He was just starting to get into fiction, and wondered what I liked. I told him I usually only read fiction. I’ve got enough real life to go around.
The fiction I read is almost exclusively stories about South Asian women. Stories of new brides, or widows, mothers, sisters, daughters. All written by South Asian women. I have my favorites, and of those favorites, all of their works.
This surprised my friend. And why shouldn’t it? After all, I was born smack dab in the middle of these United States. Until I was nearly 18, I had never even been on an airplane. I live a very typical American life. I live in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, driving my Volvo station wagon (estate for my cousins across the pond). I stay at home with my disabled son all day every day, while my husband works in his corporate job to pay the bills.
But deep down, running through my veins, the very beat of my heart pounds of other lands. Distant lands, and not so distant lands. I love to read these stories, because in my mundane American life, they take me there. To the dusty streets of Calcutta, or the sweltering heat of Jaipur, to the Taj Mahal in Agra, or the city and sea of Mumbai. And there are the stories of the many Bengali and Pakistani and Indian women who land in Western countries. In places like Brick Lane in London, or Berkley in California, or following their newly chosen husbands to university jobs in Boston.
And while I read, I remember, and I wish myself there. One of the most magical visits to another land in my life, was three weeks spent in India. But, while we were there, I hated almost everything about it. It was hotter than any hot I had ever experienced. The smell choked me in a way that caused me to wretch more than once in front of curious gawking children in every shade of brown.
It was filthy, absolutely filthy. With defecation from animals and humans alike right in the roads to step over. The horns blazed in the bumpy taxi and rickshaw rides. I wept in my bed at night thinking of the mothers holding children who would pull on my clothes in the markets asking for money. And the food was hardly something I could stomach. It was literally an attack on all my senses.
Yet now, when I think of that time, of India, it doesn’t take long for my eyes to tear up. I long to go back. To walk those same dirty streets, to see all of the same sights over again, to eat every thing that is presented to me. To make new friends, if even for just that moment. The same things that were so assaulting to me then, are the things I hold so closely to my heart now.
I have gotten to know these places more through reading about the lives of the women in my books. And I’ve ventured out to areas that I never thought I would want to visit. Places like Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, and Iran, and Afghanistan. And I truly would love to visit every one of those places.
But for now, I have medicine to measure, and doctors appointments to schedule. I have insurance companies to argue with, and government agencies to persuade to give care for my son. I have a child with a disease so rare that the leading doctors in the world shake their heads in confusion at him.
And because that is my life right now, once he goes to bed at night, I look at the bookshelf beside my chair, and I beg them to take me to a far away land, or not so far land. Just for about an hour…maybe two…one chapter at a time.
Where do your books take you? Do you enjoy fiction, or just the facts man?
Tags:
Books,
Culture,
Guest Columnists,
Life 
I don’t know why it is, but I really struggle to get going with something until the time pressure really starts to kick in. I’m definitely a last minute kind of guy.
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