A Little Princess

Today, I was feeling numb. Since my parents left me on my own a year back I have known only one solution to it; get drown in a book. I was looking through the shelves of library for a slender and easy read and was not able to resist a charming title “A Little Princess”, story of a girl’s desire of being a princess in wealth and destitution. A girl whose only relation in this world, her father died when she was eleven. The tale of a lonely girl lands up in my arms when I too was also feeling lonely. Serendipity..?? May be.

A young child Sara brought from India to London for her education. Treated as princess by everyone because of his father’s wealth, she is forced to live in penury like a maid after his death. Wise beyond her age and extremely well mannered, the girl tries to live like “a little princess” using her vivid imagination despite the ill-treatments she receives from others. And finally like every other children's book, happy ending takes place when the girl is restored with all her wealth by his father’s friend.

Sometimes when you are alone and are in desperate need of someone, such stories can force a smile on your face and provide you with the hope you crave for. The book gave me the much needed comfort. It shows the power humans imagination and how it can be used to comfort self.

For the book I will just quote the lines written on the back cover of the book:

This timeless classic will never lose its appeal to both adults and children alike.

Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai

Recently I decided to comprehend some of the famous Indian authors making waves across the globe. So my hands landed on Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting as I am familiar with her writing because her work “Games at Twilight” was in our English text book.

Short listed for the Booker Prize; Fasting, Feasting is book divided in two halves, first Indian represented by homely innocent girl as Fasting and the second being American as Feasting. Fasting is a story of a girl who is forced to drop out from school because of her mother’s late pregnancy which results in the much awaited birth of the male child. Zero at education and oblivious to the ways of attracting men she fails to bring a decent marriage even after repetitive trials. Younger sister gets a handsome Prize Catch but is also unhappy with her life. The brother, jewel of parents, is sick of being told everything and wants to live on his own, alone and has decided to bury himself in books.

Second half is equally gloomy; an American girl reasonably educated and having all the liberty hates her family and is starving to uphold an impossible figure. I was unable to articulate what the author wants to communicate through this book. Not even a single character in this book is happy or satisfied by his or her life. Is this dark story represents the realities of our life??

I decided to move on and picked up another book with an Indian author (again female). This time it was Arranged Marriage by Chitra Benerjee (author of “The Mistress of Spices”), a short story collection. But I found the stories equally depressing. Why is it that Bollywood movies always have happy endings and why Indian authors (at least some) cannot do the same??