Dear Reader,
l Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris and the latest Robert Galbraith thriller.
There have been more floods since last week. More landslides.
Mostly there is no electricity. When it comes, for a few hours a day, I rush around crazily, charging Kindle, phone, laptop and battery pack.
When the network stutters to life, panicked calls come in. “How can you sound so calm? You’re marooned!” they say.
“I have Zora for company,” I tell them.
Zora, the protagonist of Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris is living alone too. I listen to her story every time I step out in the rain, walking through sludgy streets and sidewalks in my rain boots, with my rucksack and umbrella for company.
In the evenings, I read by candlelight, rationing myself 10 percent of J K Rowling’s latest thriller – The Hallmarked Man written under the pen name Robert Galbraith. It helps that this book is not as racy as her last two -The Running Grave and The Ink Black Heart.
This time around, it appears that Rowling has decided to give us more of the Cormoran Strike and Robin love story. The will- they won’t- they that worked as a brilliant underlying tension to the central mystery is now replaced by love triangles. And while I am totally rooting for the Strike and Robin romance, I am not sure how I feel about this latest moony avatar of the complicated Cormoran Strike. I am being exacting I know, for their story is still the best kind of company for these electricity-less nights.
By day, I return to Zora. Narrator Rachel Atkins brings her to life—Zora, a Serbian artist who studied in Paris and Belgrade before coming home to Sarajevo to paint bridges and teach at the Art Institute. When I listen to Zora’s story, I realise how lucky I am – things are not as bad for me as they are for Zora.
Zora and I both live in valley towns where the civic amenities are dissolving around us – no electricity, no water. And while mountains around my valley are full of landslides and rockfalls threatening travellers with injury and death, they are not launching pads for the weapons of war. Unlike Zora, I don’t have to fear snipers or howitzers high in the hills.
Morris invokes the atmosphere of the city of Sarajevo unbelievably vividly, building up the suspense in this war story showing us the anguish of religious hate rearing its head. Listening to Zora’s story reminds me to be grateful for life and living. Hearing descriptions of her painting inspires to paint too.
Returning from the market, I pull out my pencils, my palette, my acrylic paints and paint a forest full of deodar cedar trees. These are hundred year old giant cedars that hold the soil together, the very trees that are being cut to make way for highways and buildings. This is the cutting of these trees that has caused floods and landslides.
Painting deodar trees.
As Zora queues for water, I too carry my jerry can to the spring near my house. Our routines, divided by decades and the drastic difference between war and disaster, are echoes of each other. This is the magic of reading. Years ago, as a young mother, I read Allison Pearson’s tongue-in-cheek I Don’t Know How She Does it. It became my Bible, my Bhagavad Gita, my own snarky version of Marcus Aurelius.
During the pandemic, alone in this same valley, I read and re-read I Am Island by Tamsin Calidas and Wintering by Katherine May, both meditations on solitude in wild landscapes. This monsoon season, it is Black Butterflies that speaks to me.
Dear Reader, in your own times of isolation or trouble, what book has been your sanctuary? What story became your unexpected guide? I’d love to hear from you. Until then, may you always find the right book to meet you exactly where you are.
(Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com. The views expressed are personal.)