Self-realisation

Strange Connections
Subha Majumder
Frog Books
2012, pp 137
125

This collection of short stories makes a strange connection with the reader. It is a mix of some good and many not-so-good short stories. While some of the themes are interesting, one feels the author still needs to hone her craft, in terms of language.

The first story, titled Obsession, starts off in typical Bollywood fashion, on a rainy night, when the protagonist’s friend’s wife knocks at his door, her “sari clinging to her slender frame, drops of water dripping from her long, dark hair.”

Then the story unravels, and we learn that the protagonist is smitten by his friend’s wife simply because she can chat him up on myriad subjects and is a businesswoman who runs a boutique, as opposed to his wife, who stays at home.

The protagonist doesn’t have a high opinion of his wife, who he thinks is boring. Eventually, the protagonist realises the worth of his wife.

Most of the stories lack the literary quality required to hold your attention. The Silent Pond, for instance, is a set of musings about the world, about life, but where’s the story?

Even the story titled Strange Connection, which gives the book its name, doesn’t have a plot that can hold your attention. That is the problem with this collection. Poor plots, weaker character sketches, and sometimes no plots at all.

The Sculptor and His Statue could have been a far better story than it is. The theme is an interesting one, and one that has been explored for long. That of the artist and his work.

What does a work of art mean to an artist? How is a work of art interpreted by the rest of the world? The sculptor makes an exquisite statue of a woman he is in love with. He pours all his love and passion into the statue but feels no one has understood his work of art the way he has.

The ‘Maiden of Unexpressed Thoughts’, as the statue is called, is interpreted in different ways. Someone sees in the statue Goddess Parvathi, while someone else sees his daughter in it. In the end, the sculptor realises that “she was real, in all her distinct identities; more real than anyone in flesh and blood...”

Among the best stories is Space. Most of the stories in the collection have a distinct Mumbai backdrop, but Space is so Mumbai.

The fact that the city is one that barely sleeps, and is bursting at its seams, serves as the perfect backdrop for a man who is looking for space, not so much in the physical sense, but more in the spiritual sense.

This man, who is caught in the rat race, starts yearning for space, a space to exercise his choice rather than stick to preconceived formats.

He does away with his plastic money, and in a minor incident where he tells a beggar woman to come back later and collect a tenner from him, he realises that “he had exercised a wonderful option, in fact, a key instrument to ward off unnecessary intrusion to his space. And that instrument was choice.”

The protagonist has chosen to break the patterns of his thinking. He realises that ‘space’ and ‘choice’ would point towards the same thing, ‘freedom’.

The author has dedicated this short story to Mumbai, which has been her home for the past two decades. This is one of her best stories in this collection. The other story that catches attention is Careless Whispers.

The protagonist chooses to revive his flagging marriage by taking his wife to a quaint sea-side town. He is jogging along a beach, when he bumps into a photographer who has captured images of him against the setting sun.

The girl is a great photographer but has been forced to opt for the more conservative engineering degree. A conversation with the jogger brings her fresh hope about her craft, while images of himself against the sun shows him that he is “both a small part in infinity, as well as complete (sic) creation”.

The chance encounter rejuvenates both and they go back to their own lives with fresh hope.