Monday, March 3, 2008

The Japanese Wife

After a long gap, I finally invested in some good books. The Japanese Wife by Kunal Basu is a collection of 12 short stories where the unexpected is the expected thing. The first story (The Japanese Wife) was the tale of Snehamoy and Miyage, his Japanese wife, the two being married via letters. The relationship that started as pen-friends proceeded to Miyage proposing to Sneha (as he was fondly called by his aunt) and his acceptance to an alliance which seemed improbable. Yet, the couple continued their marital life without getting physically close to each other. After some twists and turns, it was Snehamoy's death that finally brings his Japanese wife to his village on the banks of Matla. This story is soon to be made into a film by Aparna Sen, starring Rahul Bose as Snehamoy and Raima Sen as the widow whom once the school master (Snehamoy) declined to marry.
The second story titled Grateful Ganga tells the story of a widow, Evelyn, who had come to India to fulfil the last wish of her dead husband, Andy....to flow his ashes in the Ganga. However, I didn't like this story, especially after the beautiful and poignant introductory tale The Japanese Wife.
The rest of the stories are put on hold as I am running through the pages of The Kite Runner finally, after about 7/8months when the book was first recommended by a friend. Needless to say, I am loving every moment of it. Would shortly let my views on it be known to all of you. Till then, it's me and the world of printed words!!!

1 comment:

dhiman said...

as usual..once again an excellent review..