Tangents
A Good <i>Story </i>
Stories at Ekushey Book Fair. Photo: Ihtisham Kabir
Who doesn't love a good story? Some of the earliest stories I enjoyed were long but exciting tales of prophets, kings and villains. My great-grandmother, whom I called Biamma, told them to me and other children gathered around her. Like Scheherezade, she held us spellbound night after night, breaking off at tense junctures to ensure we returned to her the next day. Biamma, who had married into the family from Dhaka's Nawab Bari, was an extraordinary woman. She was over seventy, but her memory never faltered during her storytelling. With her long white hair she was a picture of grace. She read voraciously. It is said that when she ran out of books to read, she went around the house looking for children's textbooks. Her brand of verbal storytelling, called Kissa, has almost disappeared from our culture. Our children multitask their way through life with smartphones, ipads and tablets while wrestling gargantuan homework assignments; few have time to listen to long stories. One of my favourite storytellers today is the American writer Paul Auster. His novels deal with normal, everyday people, often in incongruous or unexpected circumstances. While literary critics love his existentialism, his finely honed style, and his modernist sensibility, Auster says it best: “When I write, the story is uppermost in my mind, and I feel everything must be sacrificed to it.” Why do I like his novels? They take me on a journey full of unexpected twists and turns. After the first sentence or two, I cannot let go. While I have enjoyed his novels tremendously, recently I came across a different kind of gem from Auster. It is a book he edited called True Tales of American Life. The book arose from a weekly radio program that Auster hosted on America's National Public Radio, where he invited listeners to send in stories from their lives. Every week he selected stories and read them out over the radio. The response was overwhelming. In the next year, over four thousand stories poured in. The stories were usually short. Once he read seventy in one radio program. They came from all walks of life: from postmen, teachers, salesmen, musicians, doctors. Many of the stories involve family: childhood memories of parents, Christmas and other festive occasions. Some are of family legends, such as the great-grandparent who fought in a war. Some are about friendship and romance. Some contain pleasant surprises, or fighting and winning against overwhelming odds. Others are heartbreaking in their sadness. Yet others deal with dreams, supernatural occurrences and unlikely chains of events. In a story called Airport, a woman's uncle has died far away and she decides to fly to the funeral. Unfortunately she drives to the wrong airport. When she finally arrives at the right airport, she discovers she has no money or credit card to buy the ticket. At this point she breaks down. Looking for a private place to cry, she visits the bathroom so she can be alone in a toilet, but it has only pay toilets. Finally, she sneaks under a toilet door only to find another woman using it! The book reminded me, once again, of the timeless joys of a good story.
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