“Listen,” he said. “I
want to tell you a story.”
In Love and longing in Bombay, we are introduced into another
society that depends on its oral culture to survive. Inside one story are layers and layers of
other stories/histories/pasts/presents that are so intertwined that they
blossom into more than just stories, but love
and longing. Subramaniam is bursting with his stories to
the point that, in “Artha,” one story even jumps into another story as soon as
he begins the telling. Within that
story, you truly feel how alive India
is with all of its people and activity and the underbelly of corruption and the
side notes of art and beauty. At first,
I had no idea that Iqbal lived alone because he was constantly surrounded by
Sandhya and her son and ex-husband, her mother, and of course—Rajesh. In the moments where he was alone, I was more
afraid for Iqbal than when he was in tasered or captive in the back of a van. Being alone seemed like a terrible fate in a
city that was so crowded and bustling that it took an hour or longer just to
travel across town.
Loyola is
not overpopulated, like Bombay.
And yet, somehow, I find myself often
seeking desperately for moments of solitude and silence. I thought that quiet was part of what humans
needed to survive—like food, air, and water. However, reading these stories, I realize that
there is something else that humans need and that is other humans. This hustle and bustle is like blood through
our veins. People feed us and quench our
thirst when we are desperately seeking meaning.
It is when we find these people who share in our spaces and our lives
that we begin to share our stories. Often,
I tell myself to shut up because my friends at home are sick of hearing about
my roommates and friends at school. When
I am at school, I tell myself to shut up because my roommates are sick of
hearing stories about my friends from home.
Sometimes, I can’t help it. These
stories are my life. Half of me is
hidden from the people I am with because they have never experienced me in my
other home.
As Love and longing in Bombay shows, your stories do not need to
be a self-portrait to be revealing. The
stories we remember and choose to retell are the ones that are most close to
our own stories—the stories that are closest to home. In these five stories (“Artha” in particular),
the characters are all experiencing both love and longing to a certain degree. Poor Iqbal is in love but he has lost the
person whom he loves and his longing is what propels the entire story forward. Similarly, the things and the people I love
are what keep me motivated each and every day. More importantly, it is the need to constantly
create new stories that drives us all to come out of our quiet places,
venturing out into the crowded streets of Bombay.
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