The elusive parrot.

Reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez is like starting a relationship with life anew.

The thread of the stories, the characters we get to meet, the images are all so vibrant and literally pulsating with life that it doesn’t take much imagination on the reader’s part to create a world with all the sparkle and dynamism of Marquez’s characters.

All that he writes about already exist in some deep corner of our mind and like walking in a deep wood resonating with birdcalls, rustling grass, cool hidden streams, we remember long forgotten experiences. 

Love in the Time of Cholera, an ‘anatomy of love in all its forms’ as The New York Times describes it, is the story of Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza who waited for fifty one years, nine months and four days to be united with his love. It is also the story of Dr. Urbino Daza, the physician to whom she eventually gets married.  The Paramaribo parrot that fascinated the doctor is part of the novel in such a way that it becomes an unforgettable character which leads to the doctor’s death.

    

“Dr. Urbino caught the parrot around the neck with a triumphant sigh: ça y est.  But he released him immediately because the ladder slipped from under his feet and for an instant he was suspended in air and then he realized that he had died without Communion, without time to repent of anything or to say goodbye to anyone, at seven minutes after four on Pentecost Sunday.” Love in the Time of Cholera.

As I go on reading this novel, I find I can imagine each scene, each situation and tried to bring one such to life using my paints. 

Dr. Urbino reaching out to catch the elusive parrot. The bird that becomes a symbol of the unattainable, the foolish, hopeless dream of the human heart. 

PPF, AEDM ,AJED,SS, AIB,SAC