Meeting Lives

Meeting Lives telescopes the time and space of myths, history and reality to recreate Aditi’s experience of life. But who is Aditi? A carefree daughter cocooned in her idyllic childhood of parental love; a friend among school friends who once charted out imaginary plots for their lives as grown-ups; a young dancer for whom art paves a path to freedom from worldly concerns; an educated woman who gives up a career to become a mother to her little son; a wife and a mother trying to articulate her emotions in a cultural ethos that sanctifies matrimony and deifies motherhood; a seeker trying to live out her theoretical understanding of Vedanta gained from her father while observing Thayee, an abandoned mother, the neighbourhood driver who loses his job… Self-discovery is a process of growth, of travelling in the mind. The meaning of life is not immediately grasped by Aditi even as it unfolds before her. However, when she looks back into her past, happenings arrange themselves to suggest a story, the story of her life that exists simultaneously with other narratives, other lives. This sets Aditi off in search of lost time, while propelling her slowly towards time regained, the time of stillness, and a crucial decision…Meeting Lives throws up questions largely considered taboo in traditional societies, and compels the reader to address them honestly.