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Lessons in Forgetting by Anita Nair - A Book Review
I still remember the dingy college library, covered with decades of dust and creativity. I was lost in the shelf one afternoon, when a friend who wasn’t much of a reader, told me to suggest a book for her. My eyes fell on Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupe. Having already read and loved it, I suggested she read it as well. A week later, she thanked me for introducing her to such a wonderful book. In 2000 when The Better Man was published, my range of Indian writing in English was limited to just R.K Narayan and Ruskin Bond. I was too caught up in the words of Danielle Steele and Sidney Sheldon to take much notice of what is happening in the literary world closer home. But that book was a revelation to me. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it because it was beautifully written and set in Kerala – my hometown, so I can’t help but be biased! So, when Ladies Coupe was published, I was eager to read it and it didn’t disappoint. Browsing through a bookstore recently, I saw Anita Nair’s latest book, Lessons in Forgetting. The cover evoked my curiosity; it showed a girl curled up in a fetal posture, nothing but a white sheet covering her, with light from outside streaming in through white curtains. It spoke of vulnerability and helplessness. The synopsis piqued my interest even more. Lessons in Forgetting tells the story of two individuals whose lives get entwined against all odds. That of Meera, a corporate wife and successful writer of cook books, and of professor J.A.Krishnamurthy, or JAK, cyclone studies expert. Meera’s perfect life gets upturned one day suddenly when her husband disappears from a party they were both attending, and then fails to return home. She lives in denial for many days, comforting her son, her mother and her grandmother that he will be back home soon. But when days turn into weeks and then months, she has to come to terms with the truth staring her in the face that he has left her for good, left her to fend for herself, her son, her mother and grandmother, and their rambling old Lilac House in Bangalore. Meera becomes an emotional wreck, not knowing how to handle the unforeseen loneliness and pain. Professor JAK, a cyclone study expert settled in the USA, has had to face cyclone-like turmoil in his life too. Hardened by the fact that his father left him and his mother when he was just a child, to embrace a life of spirituality, he always scoffed at his mother for waiting for his father to come back someday. His own marriage fails, his elder daughter Smriti, the apple of his eye, decides to come to India to pursue further studies. Then one day he gets a call from India, he returns to India to see a wreck, a wreck that was earlier his daughter. A trip to a seaside town with her boyfriend - that is all that is known. She is now reduced to a vegetable, immobile in bed, incapable of doing or saying anything. What happened during that holiday? Nobody seems to know. A shroud of mystery surrounds it. JAK decides to find out the truth. He retraces Smriti’s steps and her life till he finds out what happened to her. Each and every character in this book is beautifully etched out. Be it Meera, JAK, her Mother, her Daughter or even JAK’S aunt, Kala Chithi, who has a story of her own to tell. Like any Anita Nair book, this one too is a slow read, but it’s unputdownable. You will sail through it leisurely, each page revealing a new notion, each character revealing a new side. The book has been crafted to echo the stages of cyclone, as the jacket says. Cyclogenesis of despair, the cirrus canopy of denial, the spiral band of deceit, the eye wall of devastation and finally, the eye of calm. Maybe difficult for the layman to understand, but once you read the book it is easy to see how each of our lives is like the stages of a cyclone. Two negatives make a positive. No stroke of genius there. When two broken lives meet, they manage to bring love, and more so, companionship into each other’s lives. It is not easy to move on in life, but when you have a companion to help you along, life becomes easier. You don’t have to block out the old memories. You just have to create new happier ones. Simple language, wonderfully drawn character-sketches and stark human emotions - these are some of the factors that would endear you to Lessons in Forgetting, a tale of forgiveness and second chances.
Editor's note: Most articles submitted to Chillibreeze go through a selection process. Only 30 percent of submitted articles are accepted for publication on the Chillibreeze.com featured article list. All accepted articles are edited and proofread for glaring errors of punctuation and grammar. Sentence structure is changed in certain cases and sometimes, entire sections are rewritten. If you notice any errors that have slipped through the cracks, do let us know! (Email us at info at chillibreeze dot com). Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in September, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.
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