#ravindersingh

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.

In this anthology of short stories as submitted by laymen, Ravinder Singh has compiled stories that truly touch your heart. So touching that I found myself crying after reading several of them.

From an elderly man recollecting his lost and arguably first love after a chance sighting of her in an old age home, to a story of kismet where two young people separated by a war find each other in an office setting. Gripping stories of heart break, of longing, and some of happily-ever-after’s.

This book actually brought tears to my eyes. The story was so simple, and at times, relatable. He dedicates is first novel to the woman he couldn’t marry. Later you learn the book is an ode to the real life woman who he met in his life that died. The book is a real life account of the tragic loss in his life, and writing out his pain transcended into a best seller novel in India the year of its release.

Edit#77

But another girl?

What would I tell her? That I spent the best hour of my life in the lap of a girl who is not you? That I may have married you but I'm still in love with a girl who doesn't exist? That whatever you do, every time I compare you with her, even when you kiss me? Won't I be screwing up so many lives- the girl's, her family's, my family's. And mine? But mine is already screwed up.