Down Memory Lane
Sketches of a Journey
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Tai then was my role model to emulate. She applied talc powder to her face. Beauty products like talc powder was neither known in our Korle village nor was it available to buy, so nobody had even a rudimentary idea of its cosmetic use. Tai once applied the talc to my face for fun and it smelled so divine, I don’t know how long I was absorbed in that moment. It was quite new for me to learn from Tai the use of that wonderful talc as a face cosmetic. I then hit upon an idea to imitate it, so I took some rice, washed and dried it on a cloth and ground it fine on stone to look and feel that like talc powder that had no fragrance. It looked fine, a bit like fine rice flour, we make for Modak but where was the fragrance? Our neighbor Nana Karandikar ran a cottage industry of making distilled, oil-based perfumes (Attar in Marathi) at home and gifted us a small bottle as sample for Diwali festival. I fished it out somewhere at home and added a drop to the rice powder and for me the great smelling talc powder was ready. I applied it on my face and it did not stay there as I was hoping.
I was afraid Atte will now scold me for waste of rice but she had a hearty laugh at my experiment of making cosmetic which she shared with Bapat family. Atte was never angry with my little pranks. May be, because we had no mother or maybe she was childless and her natural motherly affection was showered on us, but she was always forgiving. Our Baba spoke of Atte as a loving saint. Though my experiment of making face powder was a failure, I felt an inner satisfaction.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Nalini Limaye grew up in Korle, a village located in the coastal Konkan region of India. There was no electricity, tap water, paved roads, or means of transportation. She attended school only through the seventh grade. Most girls in the region were married off at a very young age of early teens. But Limaye’s brothers wanted more out of life for their beautiful sister.
In Down Memory Lane, Limaye narrates her varied experiences, telling stories of everything from her family, to village life and its people, to day-to-day chores, social customs, her move to a larger city, her marriage, her immigration to the United States, and how she adapted to a new country and new culture.
Originally written and published in her mother tongue of Marathi, this English-translated memoir shares the transformation of one Indian village girl, who did not wear shoes until age eighteen, and how she became an American citizen in her seventies.
About the Author
Nalini Limaye, now ninety-two, was born in a small village in India and lived there for the first eighteen years of her life. She is now a US citizen and lives in a nursing home in Princeton, New Jersey.
Vivek Date has worked in Development Banking and public policy advocacy for private sector development in India for 22 years and in the United States and Eastern Europe for 16 years.