A grandmother and her granddaughter fall in love in the same way, decades apart. The distance between their circumstances does more than any social history to show what has and has not changed. A young actress whose career depends on her appearance gains weight and watches the industry's patience expire. A father reaches across years of silence toward a son he has failed to know. These are some of the lives in Balam Sundaresan's short fiction, all Tamilian in setting, none of them parochial in concern.
Sundaresan's range across this collection is wide. Romance, class and gender constraints, superstition, the specific comedy and grief of family life: she moves between them without announcing the shift. The dialogue is crisp and carries weight. The humour, where it appears, is precise rather than decorative. Compassion is present throughout, but it never tips into sentiment that lets characters or readers off the hook.
What holds the stories together is consistency of vision: people navigating the worlds they inhabit, with the choices those worlds actually allow. South Indian in texture, universal in implication.
Portraying the myriad facets and nuances of the lives of Tamilians, the author, Balam Sundaresan, offers a garland of short stories in this collection. She paints a colourful canvas of themes ranging from romance, to social inequality, restrictive gender roles, superstitious beliefs and traditions, and the joys and challenges of familial bonds and relationships: the contrasting love stories of a woman and her granddaughter in two different time periods, a young actress who gains too much weight, a father's love for his distant son, or a young man's search for his mate. Balam's style is an engaging mix of crisp dialogue, gentle humour, and compassion. Though the characters and settings are primarily Tamilian, their appeal is universal. Together, these tales blend like the dishes in a sumptuous South Indian feast, each one adding a distinct flavour to the rich, colourful banquet of life.
