Welcome to my Querencia!

Chapter One:Live Life Better with Wisdoms of Melquiades

57 years ago, Gabriel Garcia Marquez created the most intriguing character of all time- The traveling Gypsy Melquiades- in his infamous novel 100 years of Solitude.

Melquiades had a way of looking at this world, he weaves his musings about the world outside and presents it to the little Village Macondo. Melquiades’s words of wisdom and fascination fuels Jose Arcadio Buendia imagination, who hasn’t left his village for years.

I’m sure we all have had such a person in our lives, Someone who wakes us from a long sleep-like a breath of fresh air- they show us the vast world outside our shells.

Writing from a small town, my world was small. Blinded to the million things happening in this world, I was comfortable in my shell. My vision expanded the minute I started to look beyond the horizon, thanks to my version of wandering Melquiades -My Uncle- my master storyteller, who is no longer alive but like Gusteau’s voice that guides the little rat in Ratatouille, my uncle’s words keep echoing from the depths of the ocean.

Can words affect us even after years ?! Yes they can, they can mean different things and strike a chord as we age and grow through different phases. So does memory, as time passes memory turns into the searing pain or warms this beating heart with a sense of Nostalgia.

I was little when my uncle-Melquiades as I will call him henceforth,brought home a desktop, one that is dusty old, but still buzzing with life. I sat there for hours as I saw parts of a computer for the first time being assembled. I watched curiously as Melquiades spuns his magic, with knitted brows…thinking…concentrating,his hands worked meticulously to arrange the computer, the wires fitted into their rightful slots, the electricity whirred, a humming sound bellowed as the computer was brought to life.

The Desktop was brought from a distant land afar, I imagined the computer traveling in a train only to meet me, in my house. I still remember my eyes dazed with awe as I stared at the magic of a screen switched on, He turned around and grined proudly pointing at the desktop, “See! , this brings the whole world at your fingerstips,” reminiscing his words reverberates one of the quotes of Melquiades from the book,

“Things have a life of their own, the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. ‘It’s simply a matter of waking up their souls.” -Melquiades

Days later, I created my first mail ID and mailed my uncle about trivial things. It was absolutely thrilling to think of my words being carried to someone who lives 3000 miles away from my small town, just the thought was mind blowing. Its funny how the beauty of things suffer dissonance as they conform to the mundane standards in today’s world.

Thinking back in time, Simple things were rare and it contained so much of pure joy and beauty of sharing. Though, I’m still living in the same small town,my eyes are open to the world beyond my graps and this space is a bridge I build to stay rooted in the memories of the past and the new.