“No one ever told me that happiness was like a currency: that when it goes, it goes, and that few people are willing to give you some of theirs.”
Short Stories is a genre I have never personally enjoyed reading too much. I picked this one up only because of it’s quirky title, which got me curious enough to read it. The collected stories in this book are filled raw emotions of growing up as an Indian in America. Throughout the book, I did wonder how many of these fictionalised situations were taken from Patel’s personal anecdotes.
Though all 11 stories bring their own nuanced lives, they all leave you with a few common ingredients lingering with you as each story ends. Patel portrayed different facets of Indian teenagers growing up in Indian societies in America, while their parents are doing all they can do uphold their roots and traditions they left behind.
The main characters going through an awkward phase growing up, trying to find their identity. Or lonely adults going through isolation craving companionship. A story about a young gay boy, bullied at school, finds his outlet through dance. A woman grieving a major loss in her life, acts out with outrageous public behaviour trying to cope with the grievance. Some of these stories were about characters hurting and grappling with the many changes in their lives, written with such honesty, they were endearing.
In most of the stories, the children are fighting with their parents’ expectations of going to Ivy league schools and having a respectful profession like a doctor. Or find yourself a well to do husband who can give you that sophisticated life. So they can boast about their children’s fancy lives to their Indian friends if nothing else! Patel talks about arranged marriages that go wrong, the compromises and the suspicions that can completely turn a detached new wife to show interest in her husband.
The stories that really had me engrossed were, firstly the title story, about the differences between two brothers that pulls them apart for years until they are reunited. The younger brother ventures out and makes quite a name for himself while the older brother stays back home to take over the family business. And the last two stories, which are interlinked. About a young man who visits his hometown in his parents’ absence and connects with old friends from school, particularly a girl he grew up with. The aunties of course, have their own opinion about this girl, who leaves a very rich handsome Indian man, and comes back home. I really liked how this tale takes a course of a few years and spills over to the next story beautifully.
Patel writes with ease and is able to bring out the awkward pain and harsh reality of his protagonist. These are coming of age stories of Indian customs sustaining in the growing influence of the western culture.
“I wasn't always this way. But the friction of life has a way of turning sharp edges into smooth ones, smooth edges into sharp ones, until you've become a duller, slightly misshapen version of your former self.”