This is a family matter. (A book review)

I usually don’t publicly speak about my book choices nor review any books. However, Rohinton Mistry knows how to make you love reading all over again with his suave language and send words to tickle the weak spots of your heart. Family matters was a work of rhythmic language, it comes to you like a wave of little moments of happiness, sadness and gratitude.

As a Mumbaikar, this book was an opportunity to know the youth of this city. How different the vast expanse of this island city stretched that still influences hearts in its old age and is even a motivation to live. It is depicted how an old man can influence lives through illness and death and how your actions come to bite you. This wasn’t the type of book I would originally pick off the book shelf, but something made me do it and I haven’t regretted it ever since.

This is probably not the best book I have read, but family matters is certainly the most influential and impressive book there is. The words have the power to engrave themselves in one’s memory and each character is so evergreen, it’s as if you have known each one for your whole life. Which is probably true, since the story screams as the pages are turned in anticipation.

The genre of this book will not please a teenager or any youth. Nobody wants to know the grievances of anybody they don’t know because everyone has their own share. But then why this book would be written? This is a painting, where each stroke of the brush tears the paper and leaves an everlasting mark which reminds you how life can turn around without your consent and soon the rainbows and rain all mix into each other.

This is a masterpiece which I believe is worth being hung on the wall and looked upon each day.

Read this enthralling novel people! If not for the entangling domestic drama but for the history of the vitality and corruption of Mumbai. For all the amazing characters that you can identify with, for the luxury of understanding how beautiful your own life is.

I hope this book gets popular through blogging! Reading is magical.

The summary: At the age of seventy-nine, Nariman Vakeel already suffering from Parkinson’s disease, breaks an ankle and finds himself wholly dependent on his family. His stepchildren, Coomy and Jal, have a spacious apartment, but are too squeamish and resentful to tend to his physical needs.

Nariman must now turn to his younger daughter and her husband and two sons, who share a small crowded home. Their decision will test not only their material resources but in ways all their tolerance, compassion and integrity. 

(image courtesy- Google)

2 + 2 = 5.

2+2 =5 is a lie openly believed out there. While the truth and logic is forgotten. 

India’s anger has been revoked since BBC released a documentary against the Delhi rape case. Women, Men, Old and Young, Educated and Uneducated all have risen again against the criminals, defense lawyers and the politicians that blame the woman for the rape.

Banning the documentary in a way indicated we Indians are offended of our own filth. The Knockout and this documentary received immediate reactions but only if the thousands of rapes occurring in India would get this much acknowledgement and justice. The banning of the documentary has a justification of its own. Broadcasting the shortcomings of our country to the world doesn’t create a very appealing image, but if we grow as an economy, why don’t our mindsets expand to accommodate more logic and rationality?

“We have the best culture, our culture has no place for woman.” This is was the statement made by a lawyer. A person who is considered educated and wise. Even as a rapist lawyer, supporting a heinous act that killed a woman just proves that humanity doesn’t come through education.

With so many views towards this case, criminal psychology and economic conditions of each family, it is so difficult to overlook how the criminals justified their actions as a “lesson for stepping out late at night”. At 8:30 with her male friend. It is funny how 6 men decided to play superior and “teach her values” by raping her and pulling out her intestines.

If reading that makes you flinch, you can surely imagine the mentality of the men who promise to protect us. It is clearly not their cup of tea.

Statements by many well-known personalities have made women unsure of their safety and growth in this country. Blaming fast food, our clothes and our careers the growth of women socially and economically is hindered. Our clothes are too tight, our behavior is inappropriate and the next time we breathe will also provoke rape. Of course it is all our fault.

But the people whose word meant a lot never blamed the men for eyeing a woman a wrong way. It is believed that rape was always in the punishment culture. But I think people need a reminder that this is no longer a period in Indian history where rape will be considered only a lesson but rather an act of a monster. So am sorry “we can’t enjoy rape even if we can’t prevent it” as expected by a well-known personality.

I am not generalizing men or targeting this only at men. This is for all the people who believe that rape is a not so serious crime. The outrage for the next three months after the incident was war like. People came out on streets with anger in their hearts and a desire to change the country but overtime people stopped fighting. People buried the incident painfully in their hearts.

Because they realized people’s mentality won’t change.

 Hypocrisy runs in our blood. A man beating his wife is called an animal but a man getting hit by his wife is called “namard”. A guy with many girlfriends is called a stud but a girl with many guy friends is called a slut. In a way or the other we unknowingly promote the mindset and behave the same.

Families will still prefer boys, men will still be considered breadwinners and women will always be considered objects that sit at home and have no ambition. Because even with so much efforts by groups, activists and the general public, I still see rape, shaming and domestic violence prevailing and growing: as much as in “Bharat” as much as in “India”. (Another quoted rape only occurs in the modern India and not in his “Bharat”)

If this doesn’t stop we will soon be forced to believe that the country we live in: recognized for its value, cultures and teachings worldwide, fights within; uncivilized and forgetting its “values” and “culture”. On the name of these so many crimes have been pushed under the carpet, so many illogical conclusions have been jumped to that on this day we ingore the sense of morality accepting what has been right for ages.

It’s time to realize that things have changed and we need to change too.

On this woman’s day while we celebrate our existence and our contribution as individuals I don’t particularly feel safe or important anymore.

We don’t know how to survive in this anarchy of blindness. Our actions and rationality don't add up anymore.

Few words: words and phrases have been sourced from various opinions. I prevent writing on social matter because of the conflicts over subjectivity but this issue needed acknowledgement. In my way I wanted to address how lowly, unimportant and so “object like” women are made to feel when it takes courage to be a woman in this and currently in my country. Infact, men or women, it takes guts to stand up for what you believe when the whole world says something else.