A Poem Centred Around Three Ideas Poem by Gayathri Seetharam

A Poem centred around 3 ideas
-Gayathri B. Seetharam
These were originally outlines of programs for City TV Toronto
And the first idea revolves around Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the time of cholera
And also Isabel Allende's Aphrodite, to centre it around Spanish story outlines
Recently, I watched the movie version of Love in the time of cholera, and loved it
I had forgotten the story and the book was lent to me by a 4th year chem eng student, Amir,
An Israeli and I was doing my M.Eng thesis and working part-time as a married student
I remember him fondly for he had also snuck a box of candy in my bag pack;

The book brings to the forefront that sometimes,
Some people hanker for old loves
And are not happy throughout their lives;
It is all about unrequited love in their cases
I have some aspects of it in my life but it is a mere shadow of a yearning
It is the same in the movie and the husband and wife
Do not have a shadow of the old love in their lives;

Hence, the idea is to name a dish and make it on the show or have a discussion of the theme
The dish should not be too sugary but yet should be sweet
I thought of the old fashioned timbit or the raspberry filled sugar coated doughnut
In Kannada circles, it is the badam puri or fried almond crisp croissants
It could also be dark chocolate desserts for they are bitter sweet
But in present day society, we are entering a whole different arena with these;

Another favourite book of mine which would have me talking about the literary aspects of the theme
Is Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence cinematized by Martin Scorsese
For it is about unrequited love and the hero denies himself the pleasure of
Meeting his long lost true love
For it is the twilight of his life
But his love is still youthful in memory;

The third idea focuses on Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Georgette Heyer's These Old Shades
If the former has the wife not caring for her husband and falling in love with a long haired lawyer
Surely, a curator type for the wife of a vicar as British books have it,
The latter has the really young heroine falling head over heels in love with the hero
And living happily ever after;

I have it on the best of authority, British female authors
That British lovers are unimaginative but French lovers are exciting
I say I prefer Indo-Canadian or Canadian
And an unimaginative dish is, although I love it, pasta with marinara sauce
And I say, spice it up with vegetables and rose wine
And you have the pasta with rosacea sauce
But an exciting dish which makes the imagination go wild with desire
Is either, for a vegetarian like me, veggie burrito and the pico de gallo
Or the chapathis with kofta curry and salad;

I shall make the last one tonight to spice up the mundane existence
Of our everyday lives
And the love of my life, my husband,
And the fruit of my labour, literally, my 20 year old son,
Shall both make tonight divine
For they hold the canopy of love for my ambition-driven existence.

Please note: Of interest to you, perhaps, is this little anecdote on the book, Madame Bovary. I was reading it during my regular workouts in the Athletic Centre in the days of yore, my graduate school days. I forgot the book, did not find it in Lost and Found, bought the book in the U of Toronto bookstore. I don't remember the book except for the barest minimum and ended up buying the book again in Indigo Bookstore for I had to check a fact which was published in The New York Times Book Review. Isn't it maddening but I couldn't find the replaced book in our home library.