When I went to India for the first time in 2008 I realized then that life’s struggles are abroad; not in a first world country where filters fade blemishes and not serving nut free cookies is considered a social faux pas.
When I came back to Canada I forgot my life’s lessons chiefly because I came back to a life of relative comfort and convenience.
Ravinder Singh’s anthology of short stories written by his readers took me back to that place where I learned what modesty, humility and humbleness look like:
One daughter writes an ode to her now deceased father and draws on her family values for strength. A single, self-pittying and unwed woman roams her city to meet a woman who has survived an acid attack. A privileged army son is summoned to get his grandmother by plane but its emergency landing provides him enough life lessons to last a life time.
These stories focus the everyday inconveniences of the west against the hardship of life experienced by those not from the west.
Absolutely, a must read book!
