All the lives we never lived, Anuradha Roy

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Anuradha Roy, an author that breaks my heart with her surreal sad stories interspersed with petrichor smells of monsoon rain and hills. Her characters are deeply alone living a sad disappointed life. They pleasures of art and beauty are like the dust of butterfly wings crumbling as you try to touch them. They have hopes and dreams but the life disappoints them and like a domino effect all those around them. 

Oh the poetry of her words and her stories, she keeps me hooked pulling me into the sadness of her characters. I feel sad, angry, helpless and feel like telling them to get over it.. come out of your vicious circle of misery and self pity. Why aren’t the others around them helping them. Is it a curse to feel so deeply and think so much. These beautiful souls struggle in this tough and thorny world, who will protect them? 

For us who have hardened to the so called truth of the harshness of this world, can only see them wither away. For all the lives we never lived.. for all the lives we could be.. for all the lives we couldn’t live.. and for all the lives we couldn’t save.. 

The story is about a man whose mother left her loveless marriage and her child to set free and follow dreams and adventures. The child is left insecure and unwanted living a life trying to find beauty and meaning amongst the plants and trees. As a reader I was torn between being a woman and a mother - how difficult it would be to abandon your child and then again aren’t women supposed to dream forced into a marriage and family of not their choice. These are dilemmas plaguing millions of women where they choose to stay for their children fulfilling the roles assigned by the society. While some fly away referred to by ugly names for rest of their lives, leaving many other lives and homes in shreds in their wake. Oh the power of being a woman and the burden of being one! 

And for those who want to read this surreal book please accept that it’s long and may wind you up in the pains and regrets of your own past. To go through the misery is one thing... but to get a certain kind of subtle satisfaction from reliving that is another. Some times the past unhappiness comes back to strike the cords of your heart, you reminisce it, pat your heart and move on.. or the only way to move on is to fall into the abyss of the regrets and live the lives we never lived and come out reborn, living all the lives we never lived. 

After all the only thing that keeps up going is hope!