Bone-tired from nearly 12 hours of travel between Bozen in Italy and Graz in Austria, I took advantage of the extra bed in my hotel room to lie down and work so that the glare of my laptop didn’t disturb my sleeping six-month-old. He was a trooper who took four naps throughout the day and remained in good spirits, smiling at other passengers, reacting to their gestures of peekaboo with laughter and delight, and looking with unfiltered curiosity at everything in the immediate vicinity— the grooves at the bottom of the window, the texture of the table mat in the restaurant car, the feel of the seat, my face, and everything beyond: the green of the Alpine meadows rolling by and the density of the ubiquitous fog.
It’s officially autumn in Europe, but we’ll have to wait at least a week for the golden light. This week is mostly wet, and the farmers are unhappy; there are apples and grapes to harvest before the co-operative deadline. They may have to work through the rain.
I’m visiting Graz perhaps for the fourth time in my life. It’s odd because I never imagined that might ever be the case when I first arrived in 2018 on a press trip for the autumnal arts festival for which it is known. I was invited again, perhaps two years later, and I have a memory of coming here to review an exhibition at Camera Austria during the pandemic. That’s when I got to know some people from the editorial team who then invited me to publish my original writing in a subsequent issue.
In late 2022, I was asked again if I wanted to send in a piece about parenting or motherhood, which is how I ended up writing a nearly 5,000-word essay with my ink pen on index cards in between bits of free time I would find after putting our firstborn (then only child) to sleep. I enjoyed writing so much that after I finished the essay, I decided to continue nonetheless, using the same method—writing on index cards with ink, whenever I found time. I ended up with a manuscript, one that is being translated into German and Italian as we speak and will be launched in South Tyrol next autumn.
This whole sequence of events makes Graz special within the constellation of my life trajectory.
I need to point out that when I first came here, it was during my expansive Europe press trip that allowed me to return to South Tyrol to meet my partner, whom I had met only twice in person in May 2018 and whom I ended up marrying some months later in a courtroom in New Delhi. I find it all kind of mystical, somehow, even though it’s entirely possible one thing has nothing to do with the other. My innate penchant for narrative seeks to connect the chain of events that have led me to this here and now—sitting in the darkened room, curtains still drawn so as not to admit the dawn light so the six-month-old can sleep longer, comforted by the droning white noise playing on my phone.
Some weeks ago, when our family—my partner, the two boys, and I—were returning from the Mendel by cable car towards Kaltern, I got into conversation with two South Asian men. They were curious about my life and wanted to understand how I got here. Over the brief journey, I offered as much detail as I could. One of them said to me in Urdu, “Your fate is really good.” (Is that a good translation of *naseeb*? It falls flat, if you ask me.) I smiled in acknowledgement.
But I wondered for many days what it is that holds one’s life together, that allows room for it to intersect with other lives and other worlds. Was it really just fate?
I have worked hard all my life to be an independent woman and, in the process of growing up in a city like Mumbai and making a home in Delhi, became invariably resilient. It’s hard for me not to recognize the value of my own input in determining my trajectory—giving up full-time work in my mid-20s so that I could build a career of my own, seeking networks and connections when none of them were open to me, and building relationships from a space of generosity, through the realm of hospitality.
I say all of this not to boast, but to remind myself of how hard women have to struggle to accomplish something for themselves, especially in India, where patriarchy intersects with caste and colonial hangovers to create a non-nutritive environment.
Last evening, I felt deflated when our oldest child, now three and a half, called me over video. He was on the brink of tears. I felt a twinge of guilt. I had been so busy working, I hadn’t adequately prepared him for my three-day absence. He had seemed fine with it in theory, perhaps, but when confronted with the fact of my not being there, was totally not at ease.
I told myself he’s unlikely to remember this even six months from now, and of course, his reaction comes from being bone-tired too, from a whole day of kindergarten and play. I remembered the sorrow I felt when our mother began working when I was perhaps three or four.
Yet, today, I feel so grateful to have inherited that legacy of a woman stepping out of her home to earn her livelihood. I have earned the luxury of working from home, and as I sifted through the various nominations for a photography award I am here to jury, I reminded myself that the work I do has cultural relevance. It has weight and meaning and stems from my commitment to feminism.
Knowing this—and the fact that Italy and Spain have each sent a naval vessel to accompany the Global Sumud flotilla—helped me sleep the sleep of angels.
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**Deliberating on the life and times of every woman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of *A Handbook For My Lover*. She posts @rosad1985 on Instagram.**
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*The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not represent those of the paper.*
https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/of-fate-and-achievement-23595845