by Navipa Zaman
Navipa’s Literacy Narrative is a beautiful exploration of her relationship with her mother through vibrant metaphors. Navipa and her mother have a “secret language,” created somewhere between English and Bengali. She uses this language as a root to rewrite her relationship with her mother as she delves into world literature. Her metaphors are traveling, swimming, and loving. I nominate this essay as a celebration of the stories that accumulate in and out of the house, in and out of books, in and out of her body, and the stories that will follow in the near future.
—Ju Ly Ban, professor
In this narrative essay, Navipa Zaman presents an evocative portrait of herself as a reader and of her evolving relationship with her mother. The writer takes us on a journey not only through the stacks of books that she has immersed herself in but also in the way that books can serve as both a bridge between reader and writer and a wall to keep others out. After hiding from her in a world of books, Navipa shows how she finds a way to invite her mother back into her life.
—Joss Lake, editor
Stuck over the East River on the Q train, I watch the ink in my book fade to black. My mother is ringing in my pocket, and my attention is pulled away for a moment. She calls me once. Twice. Three times. Five times. I ignore it. I know she’s worried about me. But right now, I’m in Germany1, the sky above me is overshot with smoke and napalm, and the vultures are circling the clouds looking for new victims of a senseless war.
I arrive home and see my mother at the kitchen table going through a pile of mail containing bills from Con Edison, invitations to weddings, and catalogs displaying the latest must-have winter coats. “Kheda laagse – are you hungry?” I say no and then disappear into my room. When I’m sure she’s fallen asleep, I reappear in the kitchen and make myself a snack. When I’m back under my covers, I fall asleep with bomber jets flying over me and the copper scent of blood stinging my senses.
While asleep, I am transported to my old room in my old house, and suddenly I can feel a dip on the other side of the bed. My mother is sleeping softly, a picture book clutched between her fingers. I am dreaming. Dreaming of when my mother and I were learning to speak English side by side. I remember how the words came naturally to me, but took a little longer for her to wrap her tongue around them. I remember us struggling to differentiate between “how” and “who” because whoever invented the English language must have hated it. But none of this mattered to us because we always had our secret language.
A secret language that no one else speaks—a secret language built on the backbone of English and the soul of Bengali. If one of us were to leave, our language would go extinct, and the castles we built out of our words would crumble. My mother asks me a question in Bengali and I respond in English. To any outsider, this form of codeswitching, filled with colloquialisms and insider knowledge, would most certainly seem foreign. To my mother and I, this is our native language. This is what we call Benglish. This is my mother tongue.
But that was back then. Now, I have built my kingdom and I have locked her out. Now, my mother stands and watches as I use words like “presumptuous” and “treacherous” to build walls of impenetrable steel and fortresses of indestructible stone. I do everything to drive myself a million miles away from her.
Someone once told me it is a mother’s job to stand still so her daughter can see how far she has come. And as my mother stands still at the shore, I swim away into worlds that exist far from here. She stands guard as I take a long train ride with Hercule Poirot2, as I live alongside Kaya on the marsh3, and as I give up a part of me for my sister like Anna Fitzgerald4. She watches as I adore Virginia Woolf like Finch5, as I feel infinite alongside Charlie6, as I carve pieces of myself out like Jude7, and as I forget the precise blue of his eyes like Tessa8. She watches as I give up the sun, moon, and stars for Noah9, as I run alongside the poplar trees with Hassan and Amir10, and as I dance to “Never Let Me Go” with Kathy11. She watches as I admire the color purple with Miss Celie12, as I travel to Nazi-occupied Germany with Werner13, and as I cover up a murder in a New England liberal arts college with Richard, Henry, Camilla, Francis, and Charles14. She watches as I become forever undone like Cardan Greenbriar15, as I pray to the gods that answer after dark like Addie16, and as I make an oath to protect, and just like Matthias only in death will I be kept from this promise17. She watches as I cry into magical cookies with Tita18, as I run a kimchi stand with Sunja in Japan19, and as I struggle with girlhood like Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese20. She watches as I draw maps towards safety like Craig21, as I never let anyone make me feel ordinary like Evelyn22, as I have fallen to my knees like Achilles23, and I have risen above the ashes just like Katniss24. I have lived, loved, and grieved a thousand lifetimes and it was all thanks to my mother.
When I wake up, the guilt rushes in fast and cold: It took me so long to listen to her. It took me too long to understand what she was trying to tell me. Ultimately, I have no one else to blame for all that lost time but myself. I realize mothers and daughters, from birth, are forced to always be on opposite sides of an uphill battle. Constantly undermining and spearing one another in the heart to prove superiority. But I am at that raw age where the world throws salt in my wounds, and my mother washes out their violence. She was made to protect me, and I to be hers. This time, I climb down from the ivory tower I have built. This time, I take my mother’s hand. This time, we both swim away into worlds that exist far from here as I share these stories with her.
1 The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2 Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie
3 Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
4 My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
5 All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
6 The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
7 A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
8 Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
9 I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson
10 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
11 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
12 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
13 All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
14 The Secret History by Donna Tartt
15 The Queen Of Nothing by Holly Black
16 The Invisible Life Of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
17 Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
18 Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
19 Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
20 The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
21 It’s Kind Of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
22 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
23 The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller
24 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Published May 10, 2024
Photo credit: “Library Bookshelf” by twechy is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
