Review: Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones

A memoir about Kashmir and beyond

On Instagram there's an account called Brief But Spectacular, where a short video gives an opportunity for someone to talk about their life or life experience, and some are so profound, others informative or heartfelt.

One post featured Priyanka Mattoo, who talked about how she was born in Srinagar, Kashmir, and has vivid memories of growing up in the mountainous Himalayan area before a violent rebellion against India erupted in 1989.

Her family left for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which they thought would be temporary, but led to exile in London, then Michigan, and eventually Los Angeles.

Mattoo now lives in Los Angeles

Mattoo wrote a book called Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones and I was intrigued enough by her short video to borrow the memoir from the library.

The "chapters" are actually a series of essays that were published in the New York Times and The New Yorker mostly, and it would have been better to note this in the forward, and that while each essay was a part of her memoir, it was not in chronological order.

As a result, I was surprised to see the stories, times and places jumping around and it was hard to keep track. 

Nevertheless, she has fond memories of her grandparents, particularly her maternal grandfather, who instructed his daughters, nieces and Mattoo, his granddaughter to be strong-headed and independent. She also talks lovingly of her parents who adore each other, and how Mattoo hoped she too would find a nice Kashmiri boy and settle down like them.

Throughout the book Mattoo pines for Kashmir, while her parents have decided to make the best of each place they settle in. Is it because she felt her idyllic childhood was violently snatched from her? Or she is nostalgic at a young age?

Then as she grows up she is a bright student, but when it comes to university, she wants to please her parents and study law, and while she manages to complete her degree, it's not exactly what she wants to do. 

She ends up with another degree in Italian with a stint living in Rome. Eventually she wants to write and ends up in Hollywood, but the hustle is not fun. That said, she meets a nice Jewish boy at a networking event and ends up marrying him, both her career and love life turn out exactly not what she had envisioned when she was younger. But isn't that the case with most people?

It's her last chapter, Someone Else's Spiders that is the best essay summing up her reflections on her identity. Mattoo also talks about how ethnic groups are treated in Hollywood, reminding me of Christopher Cheung's Under the White Gaze, where in her case, she is frustrated that non-Indians come up with movie storylines, while her ideas of more compelling stories are rejected.

Mattoo's writing style is chatty and at times funny, particularly when it comes to her dating experiences, but it's her cultural explanations that are interesting to read.

However, we never do learn what bird milk and mosquito bones are about...