More from the Budha of Suburbia

Her father had died at the wrong time, when there was much to be clarified and established. They hadn’t even started to be grown ups together. There was this piece of heaven, this little girl he had carried around the shop on his shoulders; and then one day she was gone replaced by a foreigner, an unco-operative woman he did not know how to speak to. Be so confused, so weak, so in love, he chose strength and drove her away from himself. The last years he spent wondering where she’d gone, and slowly he came to realize that she would never return…

Death just leaves so many questions unanswered, so many emotions unspent, so much incomplete!

The Budha of Suburbia

by Hanif Kureishi

An excerpt from the book describing the situation when the protagonist asks his father about the latter’s middle aged affair and his plan for the family that he was part of until then:

Confusion and anguish and fear clouded his face. I was sure he hadn’t thought much about any of this. It had all just happened in the random way things do Now it surprised him that he was expected to declare the pattern and intention behind it all in order that others could understand. But there wasn’t a plan, just passion and strong feeling which had ambushed him.

Luck By Chance

The end of the movie has stayed with me. The way Shona decided to not go back to Vikram is so atypical of our films. The fact that she could empathize with Vikram, and still see his selfishness in the whole come-back-to-me-cause-I-need-you act is so rare in life, and almost unheard of on screen.

I loved it.