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??