The art of not giving a rat's behind!

Is love enough? Sir (Hindi; 2018)

Netflix

The question is this. What draws two souls together in a romantic bond and possibly in the union of matrimony? Is it physical attraction or the ability to see things through the same lens, have the same madness or perhaps share the same dream of how life ought to be?

There used to be a time, perhaps even now in certain circles, of these types of unions being arranged by elders. There are no unique qualities looked for by the involved parties. There is minimal interaction between involved parties, and the marriage is more of a contract to continue the circle of life. One takes what one gets and tries against all odds to hold the fort against time's uncertainties. Come what may, the union of the Gods stand the test of time; only to revoked by death.

Now, is it necessary for the uniting couple to be compatible? After all, it is a biological union for continuity of species of which Nature can make the natural selection. Society determines every offspring of these unions be accounted for and the responsibility of caring for them is cast in stone. Biology encourages the male species to sow their wild oats but the female to be stringent with gametes' choice in a competitive selection of the fittest. Unlike their counterparts in the animal kingdom, Man is expected to provide for his partner and kind. 

Man has also put in another criterion to be locked in matrimony, compatibility.

The romantics in you want to believe that the highly acclaimed movie characters will have a happy ending. The logical mind, however, drills upon you this association is doomed from the word go. A barely educated young widow from a remote village coming to town to work as domestic help is no compatible match in hand for a US-educated architect/writer who has been cradled in luxury throughout his life. The widow may have a chest full of zest and big dreams to lift herself out of poverty with her bootstraps, in reality, unicorns cannot be pink and invisible at the same time.

Ashwin returns to his apartment, heartbroken, after leaving his bride at the altar after finding to be adulterous. Ratna, his helper, over time, tries to cheer him up by telling her miserable life as a curse with early widowhood and being the breadwinner for her family, even though they look at her as a burden. 

The acting is so nuanced, filled with subtle body languages and unspoken dialogue. Despite being a simple story with an ending which is anybody's guess, it managed to maintain its viewers' attention till the end.

The ghost of one's social past will haunt him until and unless one uproots and starts life afresh away from the encumbrances of the web of societal mores and pressures. Alternatively, one can live a reclusive life, giving two hoots to people around him, come hell or high water!

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 - A Review

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2297442575?type=review#rating_153810108

Madhulika Liddle's Reviews > The Best Asian Short Stories 2017

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The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 
by Monideepa Sahu (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Zafar Anjum (Goodreads Author)(Series Editor) 

Madhulika Liddle's review

Feb 22, 2018

really liked it

Several years back, I was talking to a European journalist who’d travelled fairly extensively across Asia. During our conversation, she said, “One thing that strikes me as a big difference [between Asia and Europe] is the emphasis on family here. Back home, once you grow up and move out of your parents’ home, there’s only occasional contact. Here, family is very important.”

The Best Asian Short Stories echoes that sentiment in many, many stories. In some way or the other, both good and bad. There is the mother visiting her son in Tokyo and slowly beginning to adjust to an alien lifestyle in Geetanjali Shree’s March, Ma and Sakura; there are the horrified parents, trying desperately to break up their son’s ill-advised (to their way of thinking) marriage to an American divorcee in Soniah Kamal’s Jelly Beans. There are mothers: the frighteningly biased and cruel stepmother of Farah Ghuznavi’s Big Mother; the self-sacrificing mother who hides her poverty from her son in Park Chan-Soon’s Ladybugs Fly From the Top; and the unforgettable Samar, fleeing war-torn Aleppo with her ten-year old son in Amir Darwish’s Samar. There is love and affection, but in equal measure (perhaps more) there are the other things that make families: the rifts, the anger, the hatred that festers in us but which is mellowed by the ingrained belief of blood being thicker than water, and family being paramount. There is nostalgia, there are the warnings passed on, born of experience, to the younger generation. There are chilling secrets that stay hidden for years before bursting forth.

Not that family is all the theme there is to these stories. There are others, very different ones: a Brit expat in Thailand, with a trophy wife in tow, discovers he’s accidentally bought himself a yakuza in Mithran Somasundrum’s darkly hilarious The Yakuza Under the Stairs. A poor schoolboy finds himself in a tight spot while trying to smuggle matches in Farouk Gulsara’s Damp Matches. And, in the vivid and almost lyrical Free Fall in a Broken Mirror(Hisham Bustani), a woman expected to stay veiled all her life tries desperately to break out—to let her spirit free.

It is hard to rate an anthology, and that too one with so many stories: some will appeal more to a reader and some less. For me, too, some stories stood out with the sheer brilliance of their storytelling, their language, and their appeal to the heart (these include the ones I’ve mentioned above, though there are others too that I liked a lot). Some stories were a little less appealing. A handful, it seemed, had escaped editing or proofreading and had typos that got in the way of my enjoyment of them. On the whole, though, this was a collection I liked: a varied bunch of stories, in varied styles, and presenting an intriguing picture of the diverse nature of Asia, its cultures and societies and values.

The Best Asian Short Stories 2017