Favourite Stories (Part 2)

 

Have you ever made a wish while blowing away a stray, fallen eyelash?

In Swimmer Among The Stars, a collection of stories by Kanishk Tharoor, the story ‘The Fall of an Eyelash’ has a protagonist Forough who leaves her country while she is a college student and reaches a foreign nation, her place of refuge, after a long journey of crossing many borders. 

“Most people were kind to Forough, but kindness is sometimes easier to give than to receive. They found the story of her voyage so courageous that they insisted she tell it over and over again. This exhausted her and offered further proof, as if she needed it, that while an exile can escape her country, she can never escape her exile.”

She studies and later teaches medieval poetry of her homeland, this makes her miss her home every single day until she marries Jonas and settles down to a predictable, comfortable and a nearly ‘no-complaints’ life in the foreign nation that embraces her. Going back to her homeland to visit her family wasn't just a distant dream but an impossible one, and she knew it. 

One day Jonas teaches her a little superstition - make a wish and blow away an eyelash when you spot a fallen one. Forough’s big dreams of seeing her family and homeland couldn't obviously rest upon an inconspicuously tiny, thin eyelash. But one day, after the superstition becomes a casual and routine affair, she wishes to meet her brother. And the next day she receives news that her younger brother would be sent by the desert route across the border and reach her eventually after a week's time. 

Can a small eyelash have so much power? Why didn't she realise this before, why did she waste many an eyelash wishing for insignificant things like a cloudless sky or a favourite football club win. Can the country that offered her asylum be her brother's too? Can wishes riding on fallen eyelashes unite families displaced and distanced by war and political turmoil? 

The Fall of an Eyelash is probably one of the most ordinary/very plain stories one would have read, nothing clearly gut wrenching or supremely tender about it that leaves a lasting impact. But as a person who practices this little superstition of blowing away fallen eyelashes and making wishes with closed eyes, convincing even family members to do the same, this story has stayed with me since I read it years back. 

Swimmer Among The Stars is a bundle of stories that boasts of elegant writing. At places, it runs the risk of getting tedious too. But what's undoubtedly impressive is the sheer range of topics/themes the collection encompasses, with each story offering something very different.