Jan 18, 2010 04:49 PM
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Unlike The namesake, the book has stories that are just not about a bunch of displaced people coping with life in an alien land, dealing with the emotional conundrum of cultural values. “Stories of Boston, Bengal and beyond “the maiden book of Jhumpa lahiri, winner of the most coveted Pulitzer Prize has a lot more life to it. Her tales are vivid, sumptuous slices of human experiences put together in stories set across different context of time and places.
In some, time and space are just a reference and while others are outcome of such displacement and alienation. Each story is set in a different mood, voice and tone interlaced with subdued humor and irony. Her deliberate detailing of inanimate objects and circumstances like guided weapons convey more than her characters ever speak of. Interestingly that puts her in spot for criticism by bringing in unnecessary details and confounding the reader. There is a certain naiveté and vulnerability to her characters that is nothing more than real. Aren’t we like them passive, confused, unexpressive. And this expression is best put across in
“A Temporary Matter” depicts this reluctance perfectly .Shukumar and Shobha are racing towards a marital collapse six months after their stillborn child. They hold back their angst and live with an embittered silence. Shukumar saddled with a burden of being unemployed student unworthy father and Shobha grumpy with the loss of her child did best to avoid each other. Shobha takes up extra assignments home and shukumar pretends to study when she is around. A few conversations by the dinner forced by a week long power failure bring about some heart wrenching confessions. The day they wept together as shukumar disclosed how he held their dead baby boy, sloshed all the hurt, grief and indifference.
“Shoba looked at him now, her face contorted with sorrow. He had cheated on a college exam, ripped a picture of a woman out of a magazine. He had returned a sweater and got drunk in the middle of the day instead. These were the things he had told her. He had held his son, who had known life only within her, against his chest in a darkened room in an unknown wing of the hospital. He had held him until a nurse knocked and took him away, and he promised himself that day that he would never tell Shoba, because he still loved her then, and it was the one thing in her life that she had wanted to be a surprise” .
“Mr Pirzada came to dine” is a moving tale narrated by an eleven year old Indian American Girl Lillia. Mr Pirzada is Pakistani who came to US to study Foliage on financial grant is invited over by Lilia’s parents for supper while his family has gone missing in warn torn Bangladesh. Over the dinner Mr Pirzada watched news on East Bangladesh Strife and missed his family. Lilia was thrilled when he came to visit and talked fondly about his family. She hardly spoke to him but prayed under her breadth for his family as she ate the last candy he brought everyday.
“eating a piece of candy for the sake of his family and praying for their safety.”
It is interesting to see how Lilia was unfazed by his identity even when his parents who had invited him so happily felt uncomfortable when Indo Pak war broke out. Sometimes Ignorance can be such bliss, as all she studied was America. She felt elated and missed him when she knew he was reunited with his family.
“Sexy” a young American Miranda is seeing a much married Dev, a Hindu Indian. She longs to be more than the just the other woman of his life trying desperately to spell Mira in Bengali or check her looks against a Madhuri Dixit’s who resembles his wife. The futility of her longing is ripped when a 7 year old rohin her friend’s son call her sexy “means loving someone you don’t know*”. After all his father too fell for a sexy woman leaving his mother wrecked.
More than the guilt of being the home breaker, the Ludicrousness of her place in Dev’s life did her in.
There are Half a dozen other wonderful stories but I cant ruminate on all of them with my limited span of attention. All I can say is Jhumpa writes invariably about grief, separation, yearning yet her stories are seldom melancholic. The Humor in the pain and incisive expression makes every story a heartening read. Really it does…
