A Roll of the Dice - A Story of Love, Loss, and Genetics by Mona Dash - 2019

Mona Dash’s Website

A Roll of the Dice- A Story of Love Loss and Genetics by Mona Dash - 2019

Mona Dash lost her first child, a boy,  to a very rare genetic disease passed from mothers to sons, SCID (severe combined immunodeficiency).  Spanning ten years we follow her through the horrowing efforts to find out why her healthy at first baby son is fading. Her descriptions of the last hours of her son will impact deeply any caring person. She is wounded when the hospital personnel told her the boy will be buried, not cremated as is customary for those of her faith, Hindus. She was told babies under one are buried.  Of course    Mona tries to understand what happened.  She had very carefully observed proper procedures, all her check ups had been positive.  Why was her baby taken?  As the memoir opens she learns the problem.

In India,where the memoir begins, the genetic disease is so uncommon, maybe one male baby out of 700,000, that physicians there are not able to initially recognize her first baby's condition in time to treat him.  She and her husband went from one doctor to another.  Finally they were referred to a doctor in Vellore who discovered she was a genetic bearer of a disease that has a fifty percent chance of taking the life of any male child in just a few years at most.  The doctor told her the best hope for her to have a son free of this disease was to move to London where there were physicians and facilities that could help her.  In order to have any hope of having a healthy son she would need expert specialized neo-natal care and very careful monitoring while pregnant.  Some doctors did advise her it might be best to abort the birth of any boys but she refused this as did her very supportive husband.

Making the decision to move to London was not easy.  She and her husband both had good jobs and family ties.  We go along as they relocate in London and are soon employed and settle into life in London.  When Mona once again becomes pregnant she is advised to go to Great Ormond Street Hospital where SCID (Severe Combined Immuno-deficiency) is recognised and understood.  It is determined the baby is a boy, meaning about a fifty percent change he will have SCID.  Mona is very much an internet connected person and she joins support groups for mothers with her issue.  I was moved to see she developed real and long lasting relationships with other mothers, from all over the world.

As the pregnancy proceeds we learn about treatment procedures in considerable detail. All of the hospital personnel and her doctors are very caring.  Her parents come from India to help.  Her new employer resents her time off from work.  We see how her religious and spiritual faith helps sustain her.  Just as she was, with everyday we worry more and are more concerned.  I admired her husband for his dedication.  

Roll of the Dice- A Story of Love Loss and Genetics is more than just an edifying account of a difficult pregnancy.  It is a story of family love, marital love, about adjusting to a life in a new city.  We learn about medical practitioners in India and London. I found it very honest, I wanted so much for Mona to realize her dreams.

Included is an by INTRODUCTION BY PROFESSOR BOBBY GASPAR,M.D., from Great Ormand Street Hospital in London.  He helps us with medical details about SCID.

As I read this powerful memoir I could not help but think of the Russian  Czar Nicholas and his wife Alexandria trying to cope with the hemophilia of their son.  I think they would greatly admire Mona Dash. 

I highly recommend her memoir.

Formations –A Short Story by Mona Dash - 2018 - The Asian Writer Short Story Prize 1st prize

You may read “Formations” by Mona Dash here - Highly reccomended

Formations –A Short Story by Mona Dash - 2018 -  The Asian Writer Short Story Prize 1st prize

Formations by Mona Dash gives us a deep look into generational conflicts in an Indian family living in London.  In the  household live a couple married for eighteen months, her father and her very dedicated to Hindu traditions mother.  Chaya is their youngest daughter.  Her mother invokes prayers in the hope this will induce pregnancy.  Dash shows us the mother’s various explanations for her daughter’s infertility.  Both have been checked and there is nothing medically wrong. 

No daughter could be anything but very uncomfortable having a conversation like this with her mother:

“Don’t worry, it will happen soon.’ Rukmini wants to reach out and stroke her daughter’s face, so delicate, fine-featured, to hug her slim body, which she takes to the gym every other day, but her daughter stands a foot away, her shoulders slumped.

Chaya laughs cynically. Rukmini knows that laughter. The one Chaya launches into whenever she feels lost and it is so often that her youngest child feels like this. Quick to despair, quick to lose hope, as if the grief was only hers to bear, as if no one else could understand.

‘How soon is soon for you? It has been a year and half already.’

‘What does Satyan say?’

‘He is fed up, Ma. He says if it has to happen it will, but he can’t take this stress any more. He thinks I am being obsessive, and all this is adversely affecting his work.’

‘Why don’t you go to another doctor?’

‘He just said we should give it up.’

‘Another doctor could help, maybe an IVF…’

‘But my gynaecologist is the best, don’t you get it?’ she stomps away again.”

Earlier in the story we learned the mother fears their might be ghosts around their house somehow blocking conception.

The mother decides a change of diet  and a puja might do the trick:

““She thinks for a while and decides she will do a puja to drive away the ghosts.  She will cook Chaya meals with warming Ayurvedic ingredients, then her daughter will surely conceive. She needs to eat some food cooked with love, food from her childhood. She writes her list for the time they will go to the Indian area to stock on groceries”.

Of course one has to wonder what is going on in the bedroom-are serious efforts being made?  We observe the couple’s  conversations about sex.  Chaya knows just when she is most fertile and insists they have sex twice a day then. Sometimes in a role reversal she insists on sex when he does not feel like it.

Dash has given us a very good look at Family dynamics.  I enjoyed The food descriptions a lot.

Then plot takes a twist i never saw coming, a shocking Development.  One that brings on a serious set of possible outcomes.

Mona Dash’s “Fourmations” shows us two generations of a family, bringing them vividly to life.  

Hopefully much more of her work can be featured on The Reading Life.  

This story is part of our Short Stories by South Asian Women Project

Mona Dash  writes fiction and poetry and her work has been anthologised widely and published in international journals. She has a Masters in Creative Writing (with distinction) from the London Metropolitan University.  Her work includes  ‘Untamed Heart’ (Tara India Research Press, 2016), her first novel and  two collections of poetry ‘Dawn- Drops’ (Writer’s Workshop, 2001) ‘A certain way’ (Skylark Publications, UK 2016) Mona was awarded  a ‘Poet of excellence’award in the House of Lords in 2016. Mona has also participated in readings in venues such as Lauderdale House, Nehru Centre, the House of Lords, The Library, Yurt Café all in London and in literary festivals such as Leicester Writes, Durham, Rochdale and Wolverhampton Literature festival.  Her short stories have been shortlisted and longlisted in various competitions such as The Asian Writer, Fish Short story, Strand International, Words and Women, UK, to name some. Mona leads a double life;  she is a Telecoms Engineer and a MBA and  works  full time in a global technology organisation.  Originally from India, she lives in London.

From https://monadash.net/

Oleander Bousweau

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