A tale about chasing childhood dreams and overcoming challenges

She's always enjoyed celebrating her birthday. The year she turned 50, she had announced that henceforth she'd decided to age in reverse. The following year she'd be celebrating her 49th.

This year, on the 20th she officially turned 70. She marked the milestone with a realisation of a childhood dream. That of publishing a book of her poems. This milestone has been long in the making.

Poetry has always hung around in our home with many who express by writing. But it had taken a backseat in the humdrum of life. After my father's untimely death due to a terminal illness she worked through her grief and loss by painting and poetry. Often the expression would be a spontaneous trigger from an exploration, as she found purpose through her inner work in ISABS. She wrote here and there, often as Facebook posts and on scraps of paper.

One day she expressed her desire of publishing a book. Her book of poems. I thought it was a great idea and encouraged her to collect all her writings up until then. I also thought it would keep her occupied. She started writing in a book. But there weren't enough for publishing a book. She needed at least 50, by her own estimate for it to be a respectable collection. I encouraged her, thinking it would keep her occupied with a goal and a purpose.

I may have gone to a business school & you may have read this in books or learnt this in workshops. But here's what it means to leverage your strengths and chase your dreams, in practice. She announced that she would like to publish her book by her 70th Birthday. For nearly a year and a half, this meant writing 4-6 poems every month. She had been the school magazine editor, I'm sure that helped. Soon she was sitting on nearly 70 poems. This was good, she felt she could sift the poems for the "better ones". But we had time till the birthday. She was getting restless.

When she suggested that these many poems were not enough to have a respectable volume, I jumped at it. With a straight face, I suggested that she should actually write a prelude or a context for each of the poems - to help the reader. After all, how would the reader relate with the poems otherwise? In my mind thinking, this should help keep her occupied for at least few months...

But here we were, a few months and all done. Not just done, with a new addition of poems, now as many as 120!

As the number of poems grew, she realised that there were themes that they could be classified in, the dominant being those which were here conversations with my dad and were about their love story. And the title of the book emerged "Mere ehsaas, Mere Arun ke naam" (My emotions, an ode to My Arun) Arun being my dad...

With no choice now but to find the publisher, gave us a week or so and finally found one herself.

She was at my place, doing the final proof-reading of her poems and eager to recite them to me and get my response. I heard a couple. I've heard them all earlier, but that doesn't count. So, I suggested that she build her YouTube channel. After all that was what the whole world was moving to, these days. I had thought this should keep her occupied, for some time....

So here we are, we celebrated her 70th birthday as a zoom call where she announced the publication of her book and the launch of the YouTube channel. So many of her friends and family, students, new colleagues joined from all over the world. Many sent messages as notes and videos. A friend had composed music for one of her poems. One of her nephews wrote a poem on her, and another painted a picture of her.

She was excited and thrilled as a child. After all, it was the realisation of a childhood dream. An expression of living life to its fullest.

Although it has been a challenging to grapple with her energy, I'm delighted with the way she has taken each challenge head-on. Presenting the newly published poetess, Kumud Kalia Issar (aka Ashu Issar) who calls herself Kumud "Tanhai" and who continually challenges herself and sets an example. So proud of this person who has the passion to chase her childhood dreams - also, my mother. Here's to realising our childhood dreams and not letting age or any curved balls of life coming in the way.

Watch the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRJoL9bmni4cfir76yUcXLw....

I hope you will subscribe to the channel and keep her occupied....

PS: the cover of the book is her original painting "Resuscitate" , a painting of a tree that inspired her. Trees continue to grow and sprout forth despite the impact of weather, nature

And you can buy the book here https://www.amazon.in/dp/B08GM4GFSF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Q9FsFbHHS9B09

#dreams #purpose #passion #storytelling #poetry