When was the last time you tried to hide (literally) the ending to a short story so that you can relish the penultimate paragraph to the fullest? When did you last feel nostalgic about being part of a story, empathetic to the extent that you want to deep dive into the characters and live in that era / time to see how they are continuing with their lives? And did you ever feel that you should definitely meet the author and quiz him, and applaud him for his unique writing style?
Maybe O. Henry or William Sydney Porter was one such person. To actually have such pathos and elegance of contemporary living, his short stories had a mix of overpowering love, sacrifice, and fantastic emotional exchange (both between the characters, and between the characters and the reader). The mere difference is Kunal Basu doesn’t give a stark anti-climax as O. Henry. Well, you can safely say that I never hoped I will be able to come across a collection of short stories, which will sweep me off my feet, in our era.
A long hiatus to writing, a book review on ‘The Japanese Wife’ was very much required for me. It is one of those times when, even in dire adversities, you need to express the happiness that you encountered. And I would like to thank Kunal Basu ten-folds for such enthralling exuberance (regret the alliteration) in his short stories.
None of the feelings in my first paragraph are imaginary. I have this weird (and painful) habit of reading a paragraph multiple times if I love the language before moving on. With ‘The Japanese Wife’ it became worse. Usually we tend to get involved with a novel, but to achieve that in a short story is truly commendable. Whenever I realized that I am about to reach the end of one of the 13 stories, I used to hide the ending with my palm and re-read the penultimate paragraph to my heart’s content.
With his vast knowledge of various locales, you won’t just wonder at his exquisite language but will also feel like asking him if he has actually lived in Russia and China, and in a particular era. You will want to know if he has come face to face with Hitler, with the students’ revolution in China, if he has encamped with the poachers in Sunderbans, if he has seen his own past-life, and experienced the pain of a spouse having an extra-marital affair with an American. And these are just snippets of his exquisite collection of short stories. Based out of Kolkata (hence almost all the anecdotes have a Bengali protagonist), he has definitely traveled far and wide to provide such vivid description of the places.
The ending to each narrative was a sweet shocker. And almost all of them gave a hope – to live your life on your own terms and to stand up against a difficult situation. There is an almost unimaginable twist to each and EVERY tale in the very last couple of sentences, and that is when you get the urge to read the story all over again, and desperately want to know how it feels to dream big and have the courage to reconcile to your fate. You will want to know how one becomes a widow to a husband she has never met, how to cope with the knowledge that the love of your life (whom you married) has brain tumor, how extreme lust can be misused to lead to your death.
Again, I was desperate to watch the movie (as I do with all remakes of the books that I read). Aparna Sen is a talented director, and with a versatile star-cast, the movie is really well made. It takes you to the old Bengali movie sophistication of Satyajit Ray’s era. It was a bit slow, considering Aparna Sen translated a short story to an entire movie script. But the visuals from the infuriated river Matla during extreme monsoon are a treat for the eyes. And the evergreen Mousumi Chatterjee was as loveable as ever!
I will suggest the cynics to stay away from the book. The less-sensitive don’t deserve to partake of such emotional upheavals. Well, the choice is theirs to take.
As for me, I intend to pick up Kunal Basu’s other reads, just for his sheer writing style. And hopefully pave my way around to meet and chat up with him someday ;).
