Did You Eat?

In early September, I audited my Writing HQ, a folder where I store everything related to writing. There is one children’s book that is finished and yet to be published. One children’s book that is outlined and a few chapters fleshed out. A women’s fiction that is waiting on me to go on a train ride across America before I can actually write that book. Then, the memoirs. I use plural because I have a book proposal that in itself is a mini book, a fleshed out memoir sitting at over 70k words, a compilation of essays from my blog archive with interstitials that I have to work on, a recipe book intended for my kids, but I know deep in my heart will be published someday.

In reviewing these books, I realized my recipe book was less recipe and more me processing life. Once the idea took hold, I couldn’t let it go. A recipe book memoir? A coffee table book with recipes and anecdotes? A graphic memoir about every food I have ever made?

Even as I sat in front of my computer mulling it over, a text from my amma made my watch buzz.

Saaptacha?

The idea was born. Saaptacha? A word that simply means “Did you eat? Have you eaten?” is really a stand-in for love. Like Natsume Soseki’s “the moon is beautiful,” Saaptacha? is a tamizh mom’s “I love you.” A graphic memoir, a compilation of me working through my feelings through food or perhaps, a composite day compressing decades into meals. Kaapi, breakfast, lunch, tiffin and dinner. An archive of twenty plus years of writing is rich source material to draw from.

With the germ of the idea in my head, I worked feverishly. Forty-five days from idea to finished product. Lots of help from my trusty wingwoman Claude. Building reference sheets for the art from my archive of photos, building scripts for each movement in the day, picking what goes into each interlude between chapters, and, most of all, reliving a life well lived. I hit publish on it yesterday.

As I worked on the book over weekends and weeknights averaging only 4-5 hours of sleep each day, I realized this book was an ode to Amma. In my blogs, I have often written about Appa. Eulogizing the dead is easy. But Amma has been an invisible source of strength I don’t talk about much. Writing about food, I saw this was a book about inheritance, a book about mom, daughter and, mom.

The book gave me so much joy while I made it. Now that it is done, I am wondering which project I should pick up next. The already languishing ones or a brand-new political romance: candidates from opposing political parties, enemies to lovers, ideological clashes, a middle ground and then, love?

Tell me which one.

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