Music to Flame Lillies

Music to Flame Lillies

Megha Rao

 

I would like to say that this book is a love story. It has a boy who fell in love with a girl when they were kids. It has a girl who ends up falling in love with him when they meet again years later. And then they part ways. So in a way, maybe it is a love story. That's what it seems like… unless you've read it about 50 times, which no one in their sane mind would do, but I have, so I will tell you, what I think this book is really about.

It's not a love story.

It's a story about a woman, who paints, reads, and listens. It's a story about magic and conversation. Noor is an artist, she lives in London, but grew up in Herga and Kashmir alternately; both lands of dark souls, stories, and pasts. Amidst all of that and the much prevailing caste system, Noor managed to make a beautiful friend whom she was not supposed to mingle with, a beautiful girl from the lowest of castes. A 10-year-old Noor, fought tooth, and nail, moved heaven and earth to be with her friend. To be with her friend who ultimately killed herself. That's it that is how the story begins.

Megha has a way of writing that captures your ears before your eyes reach them. Where our mothers are murdered, there we pray.  You need to take a minute to feel what you just read. This book is an assortment of conversations and a lot of magic. You can feel the superstitions of the villagers and you can feel the adrenaline when you see the wolves, you can feel the fear when you're running through the woods and you can feel the ecstasy when you find the magic coursing through you, you feel the disgust when you see a girl with her intestines on the outside and you feel the unbelievable pain when you leave the love of your life behind. That's the thing. You feel it all, that's the beauty of this book. It's hardly a love story; the spells, temples, and ghosts took it home.

Cooking together, Running together, Talking to each other as if you could never stop, and experiencing a silence that you feel will never end… I did it all, but when I took a step back and really saw what we had, it wasn't love, no, it wasn't a feeling, it was a way of life, it wasn't an emotion that I could have expressed, it was just something I did, Asking him if he thought we will lose control over our bodies one day? It wasn't an emotion, it was the way I lived and I didn't know any other way to live, it was a part of our day, for him to ask me if I thought we were the Enlightened Age or living in the Age of Enlightenment. It wasn't love.

Love is this glorious candlelight dinner, a sick teenager pukes out so she can stay skinny.

Then she had to leave. The magic in the soil of Herga wouldn't let her stay there. It was as simple as that, she had to leave the love of her life. But you see, the thing is, she wasn't heartbroken, it didn't break her heart… at the end of it all, she was hopeful, she hoped for Kalki to live a life with meaning, she wished to find a love like that again, she wished to be engaged in a conversation like that again and smile like that again. Before, she used to draw her dead best friend, now she drew the magic in those lands, the magic and the ghosts that helped her grow into another person.

The sky was bleeding into a lifeless sunset that evening.

 

Her art evolved and her heart grew.

She now knew how a man in India felt about God, Power, People, Castes, Philosophers, and Magic and she had a lot of nights where she stayed up with him getting to know everything she possibly could, and she could live with all of that information and memories for the rest of her life.

She could live for the rest of her life hoping to feel like that again.

You see, in the end, it wasn't about that one person, but what her life looked like because of him, and she couldn't wait until it looked like that again. Until then, she had her paints and her thoughts and for her, that was more than enough.

Noor Haque.