You may wonder what this picture is doing on a blog intended to share my battle with Ranjan's cancer. This battle has many protagonists but the main ones are R and I! And to ensure final victory it has been important to conjure two arsenals: one to keep Ranjan going and the other to keep me going. The later is simpler and I guess less critical though I wonder what would happen if I had a meltdown. My line up is simpler. I just write every emotion I feel, the good, the bad and the ugly before it can fester inside me. But the Muses have been kind and have also sent many serendipitous moments that set my involuntary memory very much in the way a simple cookie sets Marcel Proust's in his book: In Search of Lost Time: No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.
I must admit that when I was a student and even later, I often read Proust when sleep eluded me; it was the ideal soporific drug. The length and beauty of his prose lulled you to sleep. I must also admit that I was not a great fan. I guess you had understand Proust's life and his final confinement in a cork-lined room where he wrote In Search of Lost Time. I guess memory was his greatest companion.
I guess I find myself in much the same situation today as I am housebound, by choice, but nevertheless housebound. And though I am no great traveller or wanderer, the fact of having a choice is freedom. My freedom seems to be the bouts of involuntary travel that have come my way and make me time travel.
So now that the stage is set let me explain the picture! This was sent to me by my elder daughter who is at present on a assignment in Rabat. The plate of Moroccan delights took me back to when I was a little girl and lived in Rabat for more than three years. My all time favourite were the gazelle's horns! Just seeing the picture bought their taste in my mouth and all my senses were alive. The visits to the King's Palace were such treats and tea were served each time you went. Images that I had forgotten and would have never remembered if this picture would not have landed on me came tumbling. That is the magic of involuntary memory. Had someone asked me to remember Morocco, I am sure I would not have talked of these sweets. But now with the taste of the almond filled delight in mouth and the syrupy warmth of a glass of Moroccan tea filled with fresh mint leaves takes me to many places at the same time: the Palace of course, but also the club where we went swimming and more than the swim what attracted me was the yummy cornes de gazelle that we ate perched on a stool and dripping with water.
The memories do not stop coming, bringing a big smile on my face and making me feel good and ready to take on a new day. Call it serendipity again but just this morning while sorting some photos I found one with my parents in our house in Rabat. The man behind us is our chef Ahmed!
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