5/04/2013

One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

A candidate for a movie-script -- a series of short-stories really - a la Jhumpa Lahiri - neatly woven into a tapestry of a bunch of motley characters trapped in a building by an earthquake.

My favorite was probably the first - Jiang, now a gramma, recounting her days as a young Chinese girl in Chinatown who falls in love with a dashing Bong and how their lives are rendered by the Sino-Indian conflagration of '62.

Then there's the pathos of Mrs Pritchett - the well-to-do accountant's wife who tries to take her life when she realizes that their relationship is missing a deeper love - and the realization from an apparition that wells up from within her - that she was responsible for giving up her own dream and passion as the young Vivienne - to settle instead for a life of promised domestic bliss with a serious kind of bloke whom she didn't understand well enough to start out with.

The sub-story of Tariq, the ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) is probably the best fit for a Karan Johar directorial, set as it is in the backdrop of America post the twin-tower bombing.

A motley set of individuals, each confronting and baring their desires, shortcomings and heartbreaks. A sweet recipe for a movie-script. i'm surprised it's not been picked yet.

The ending is left a bit open.
To paraphrase, 'The iron-boot clad giant thumps overhead as Uma begins the end of her story'.
I take it that the aftershocks set the tremulous roof crashing over the group and they all perish.
What's your interpretation?