Unaccustomed Earth

Everytime I read a work of Jhumpa Lahiri, I end up sad and depressed for days on end. I thought this plethora of feelings that I go through, had something to do perhaps with my ageing process ;) or to the fact that I empathise a lot and thus create all such trouble for self.But I was kind of relieved on browsing the net for her works, almost all the reviewers admitted to being haunted /daunted on reading her works. I read The Namesake when I was pregnant with Achulde, it did not leave a nice feeling and I decided not too read her work again, atleast for a long time, then.
So when one of my closest buddies, gave 'The Unaccustomed Earth', her latest work, as a gift, I was initially reluctant to even start reading it. But I soon found myself, sitting late into the nite, such a page turner effect the book had.Its a collection of short stories and what is common across the stories is that in each of the story, one of the characters , mostly, the protagonist would have a secret to reveal that would turn out to be the crux of the whole story.And in each story, the secret is brought beautifully , in a unique way, mesmerizing style of writing.She is a skilled writer, enviable indeed, engaging , confident and completely in control.I loved the first one on Ruma and then 'Hema and Kaushik' the best.The latter haunted me for days on end. The only glitch was that , the moment the venue shifted to Thailand and clue was given on the timeline(2004), it suddenly crossed my mind that , Tsunami would become part of the backdrop and it turned out to be right. That was the only time, I found myself out of the book and not engaged/engrossed, the surprise element (if she intended any) was lost.But that didnt reduce the impact of the grief by an iota even. I was saddened and disappointed by the decisions taken by the protagonist(Hema), and somehow I wanted to shake her into making the right decision, all the time knowing and to be honest ,consoling self saying its just a work of fiction!!!
Maybe it was reminding me of one of my best friends, who is now in a very difficult situation in her personal life, and has not been doing anything abt it, I just dont want her to be another Hema. I want her to take control of her life and make things easy for her and others in her life. This is to you girl, hope you reach where you ought to be, where you belong to, pretty pretty soon, touchwood.

Bhakti Margam

Nowadays Bhakti is the flavour of the season and the TV channels are loaded with Bhakti serials, atleast the malayalam channels. My Achan was an ardent fan of Swamy Ayyappan which ran for almost 2 yrs and , when they started running short of original stories on the diety, they introduced stories on experiences of Devotees and in no time, it got so boring that even Achan gave up after sometime. But even now I see a torrent of such serials like Devi Mahatmyam, Krishna Guruvayurppa, etc etc.Since Achulde and Mommolde play with the remote quite often, the TV would be running in the background, most of the evenings in our home though no one would be watching as such. One such day, it was showing a story on the Goddess killing an Asura and most of us sitting in the family room were passive viewers. The Asura entered the scene,the make up was intended to be scary, the blackpaint on the face, the Jada , the big moustache etc, he was doing the roaring laughter coninuously for 5 mts on entry, the tyical demon laughter and I was beginning to wonder whether Achulde would appreciate this act at all. I didnt want my child to have a disturbed sleep and was abt to reach out for the remote to turn it off, when the monster on TV decided to do the Attahaasam once more and immediately from behind my chair , I hear a meek 'return' ' Hee haa haa haa'. That was Achulde standing there and imitating the Asura's laugh. He was enjoying the show. Apparently, he had not even realised that , it was something that was designed to scare the viewers!!! He was enjoying it thoroughly thinking its a joke :)