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DIMAPUR — The 81st publication of PenThrill titled “Things that grow on us” written by Lum Shaiza, was formally released amid an intimate gathering of family and friends at Café Dalgona in Pune on October 8.
The poetry book was released and dedicated over prayer by Junita, a friend of the author, while Shaiza’s childhood best friend read from the book, an update informed.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]Lum Shaiza, the author, is from Ukhrul and co-manages a bookstore called ‘Prologue Bookstore’ as well as a library called ‘Prologue Library’ in Ukhrul. “Things that grow on us” is a collection of poems and verses reflecting the passage of time through the ages the author has outgrown.
“While putting this book together, I thought of my mother diligently putting photographs of our family together in photo albums. Each photograph she saves away, each poem I write down, becoming a portal to a time, a feeling that will quietly slip away from our fickle memories. Letting go and yet, in our own ways, holding the past dear to our hearts, even the worst of times,” Shaiza wrote in the prologue of the book.
Stating that these are writings on coming of age, she added, “the flush of experiencing complicated and complex emotions for the first time, and the struggle of it.”
She shared that the book is also about love and its many forms, and “about both the fragility and the resilience of family bonds. It is about the communal residentship love and friendship takes up in our memories. It is about nostalgia, laughter, weeping, cheering, and yearning.”
But above all, she remarked that the book “is a celebration of life for all the ordinary but much-cherished experiences of our days, even the ones we’ll forget. It is about the things that growson life, on us.”
The book is divided into three chapters namely, ‘Age Matters’ that talks about growing up, ‘Sweet Sorrow’ on discovering love, and ‘Dear Life’ that talks about people.
In growing older, the author also said, “We find that love was always there, even before we ‘fell in love’ the first time starting right from our mother’s womb.”
“There will always be more of it, more to it than we’ll ever know in one lifetime. So let love, all kinds of it, grow on you. Heaven is where things grow”, she added while asking readers to “read it till it grows on you, and your own meaning of it.”
The book is dedicated to her parents, whom, she said, are the mountains she comes home to.