It’s been a long time since I participated in Thursday Doors- first, for the want of doors and then, for the want of time. But here I am, with doors from Morocco. My sister visited the country to rein in her birthday on the 12th of March. And I asked her for pictures of the doors. The sweet sister she is, she complied. And most willingly, because Morocco is a treasure-house of doors. And I have been sitting on this treasure waiting for April (the month of poetry) to end. Here’s the first part of Morocco doors. For more of Thursday doors, you can read Dan’s post here.

Isn’t each door a gem? Apparently, the doors in Morocco follow the Hispano-Moorish architectural style. This style originated in Spain (Andalusia). It was taken across the straits of Gibraltar to Morocco at the behest of the ruling Berber Almoravid Dynasty (I got this from my reading on Google). My favourite from these pictures is the door on the left with orange and green paint. Did you notice the floor in front of each of the doors? Such great care seems to have been taken to make the entrance beautiful. As people in the previous centuries were smaller in stature, the doors in Morocco which are many centuries old, are small and the alleys in the city are narrow.
I’ll be sharing the remaining doors which are far richer than these in my next post.

In this post, I’m also participating in Thankful Thursday. Because yesterday (which was Thursday in my part of the world) gave me enough reason to be thankful for – I woke up with a message from Colleen to participate in wordcraft poetry. It will be my first time participating in this, and it got me excited.

The temperature fell a little and made a walk in the park pleasant. Although it was just 7.00 a.m, the path had been swept clean and the dust that generally rises as a result of the sweeping had settled down. I had taken my mobile to take pictures of birds- I had seen a few new ones lately, but they seemed to know that I was on the watch, for none except this woodpecker showed up yesterday.

When I returned from the walk, I received a picture from a friend in Dubai with my book (which was released in the last week of March). An hour later, another friend in Qatar sent me her picture with the book. These are special not only because they bought my book, but they took the trouble of getting it. The thing is that the book cannot be printed by Amazon in the Middle East (as per the rules of the countries there), and my publisher in India has to get a license from the ministry to sell it there through Amazon. These girls got someone who was travelling to India to get it for them and that’s why it’s all the more sweet.

This was Thursday just beginning for me. Sometime in the afternoon, an ex-colleague and friend of mine sent me a message that his aunt was visiting Mumbai from Canada, and he had asked her to get a copy for him and for another friend.

At the same time, a friend in Mumbai who had started reading the book sent me a message telling me she was enjoying reading it.

Later that day, a dear blogger friend, Sarah, from Travel with Me said she had begun reading the book on her journey back home after a holiday.

Another blogger friend, Manja, from An Embarrassment of Riches , messaged me on Facebook to say, “In the story, the second main character has just been introduced, it appears… And he just arrived in India. Beautiful, unforced narrative.”

When I was ready to call it a day, I received this picture from a classmate with the Capitol building in the background.

I’m sharing all of it here because I don’t ever forget the 4th of May, 2023. It was the most beautiful Thursday after a number of slow days where nothing happened and I waited for reviews to come in from those who had bought the book.

Anybody who’s written a book knows how difficult it is to get the word around. So, days like these must be celebrated and cherished. They don’t just happen. This Thursday felt like a sweet blessing from the heavens.

I hate marketing it at every opportunity I get but being a writer these days means you need to shed all ego and talk about your book. So, this is me doing it. For more about ‘Coming Home’ click here .

For the Kindle and paperback edition of the book, please click here. The book is available in most countries.

You can get your copy of the paperback edition in India by clicking here.

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