World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments

Early in their marriage, Nezhukumatathil and her husband go on a trip to India. They rent a houseboat. After docking one night, a calf and its mother charge out of the jungle and stare at them. Later that evening, they hear strange noises and see bits of papaya falling from the roof of the houseboat into the water. When they look outside, they see bonnet macaques in the trees and a wildcat on the roof. Nezhukumatathil and her husband tell the boatmen that they are afraid of the monkeys. The boatmen start laughing, the monkeys join in, and then they themselves start laughing, too. She and her husband eat the curry the boatmen have prepared for them.

Beginning with June, Nezhukumatathil goes through the months and describes her daily life and writing habits. She calls this chapter her “take on writing during the first year I became a mother in Western New York” (79). In June, Nezhukumatathil has just given birth to her first son, and her “life is chaos” (79). She handwrites letters to friends with colorful stationery and envelopes. July’s entry is very short: “A blue jay gossips at my window. I nod my head, Yes, yes. Is that so?” (80).

In August, Nezhukumatathil is “back to some semblance of a writing schedule” (80). She and her husband take turns watching their baby. Sometimes she has the chance to pick blueberries. In September, she has a short visiting-writer gig in Tempe and visits a large insect collection. She is able to write a lot of poetry. In October, she has a recurring dream in which a roc (a large mythical bird) has captured an elephant that she rode once in India. She does some readings in Seattle and New York in November and continues to write poetry.

In December, Nezhukumatathil writes “nearly a poem a day this month” (82), and she decides not to hang holly over her office door. Her writing is “slow but steady” in January (82). Her friend tells her about raising chickens. February is one sentence: “My son makes his first snow angel, a tiny asterisk in the yard” (82).

In March, she goes to Koreatown in New York for a long weekend and works on finishing her third poetry manuscript. She reads voraciously while away. In April, she gives lots of readings and writes no poems. In May, Nezhukumatathil writes and works at the university and admires the springtime flowers. Her son takes his first steps.

Nezhukumatathil visits the Georgia Aquarium and swims at the surface of one of their large tanks with a dive master and other visitors. A whale shark comes close to her. Whale sharks are very large but only eat plankton. Nevertheless, she imagines being eaten by one and leaving her children without a mother. The whale shark comes close to her several times, behavior the dive master says is uncommon. Returning home, Nezhukumatathil brings her son a whale shark hand puppet, and she feels guilty that whale sharks live their whole lives in captivity while she is free to move where she pleases.

Nezhukumatathil recounts a Philippine folktale about the origin of the whale shark. A greedy teenager named Kablay refuses to leave his town when a typhoon hits. The coins he is clutching are pressed into his skin and create the whale shark’s markings, and his legs turn into fins.