The reality of fiction

Sometimes fiction and reality collide. Other times, they complement each other.

I've been doing a fair amount of reading in my spare time. Now that we've set up the office/den area, I've got a nice reading chair, with natural light throughout the day, which makes it the perfect place to spend Friday and Saturday afternoons.

Last week I finished a book that applies to my life here in Doha in a way I would never have expected. The book is The God of Small Things, written by Arundhati Roy. It's quite well known, I believe - a winner of the Booker Prize. I picked it up at the local Virgin Megastore the last time we were there because I liked the cover. I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, but why else would there be cover art on books? It wasn't just the picture though; the quotation on the front said "A masterpiece, utterly exceptional in every way" (Harpers & Queen). I think that was what sold me on the book. That and the fact that it was set in India and cost less than 50 QR.

Having read it, I'm not sure that I would go as far as Harpers & Queen, but I will say it was beautifully written. Roy led me through a complex timeline of multiple pasts and the present with amazing subtlety. Her metaphors were natural and beautiful. She revealed the plot slowly, but not tantalizingly - which I really appreciate.

My feelings about the book are mixed: I quite enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I would necessarily recommend it. Well, I think Marie might like it, or maybe Kathy...I'm not really sure of Kathy's taste in books yet, though.

Anyway, the connection between the book and Doha is this: The story is set in the Kerala province of India. Until a month ago I had no connection to this part of the world, but in the last 3 weeks I have met over a dozen people from Kerala. There are a number of agencies there that recruit workers to come to Doha, and just about every taxi driver I've had the privilege of meeting has been from there. Just the other night Darren and I had a 20-minute conversation with Tiju about his language and hometown (Cochin, which incidentally was the place the characters in my book caught the train.)

I realize my only connection to Kerala or the Malayalam language is a fictional story and its characters, which is hardly a connection at all. But now I at least have a frame of reference for my conversations with the Indians I meet in my travels in Doha.

In this context, one part of the book really stood out to me:

Now that he'd been re-Returned, Estha walked all over Ayemenem.

Some days he walked along the banks of the river that smelled of [feces], and pesticides bought with World Bank loans. Most of the fish had died. The ones that survived suffered from fin-rot and had broken out in boils.

Other days he waked down the road. Past the new, freshly baked, iced, Gulf-money houses built by nurses, masons, wire-benders and bank clerks who worked hard and unhappily in faraway places. Past the resentful older houses tinged green with envy, cowering in their private driveways among their private rubber trees. Each a tottering fiefdom with an epic of its own.

He walked past the village school that his great-grandfather built for Untouchable children.... (p. 13)

There are so many people here, working hard and faraway from their homes (and often their families). Whether they are happy or unhappy I cannot say, but their lives are not easy. Many work long hours in difficult jobs for poor wages that they send home to their loved ones.

I think about these workers when I drive past a construction site, when I'm served in a restaurant, when I walk past a security guard or a cleaner. I wonder if they ever regret their choice to come here to work - if indeed it was a choice. I imagine their children running to the door when they come home after a shift, or return home after a few years away, so glad to see them. I smile at them, and greet them as I would a colleague, hoping they feel a sense that although I cannot understand the situations or decisions that brought them here, or what their lives are like as workers in Qatar, I appreciate them.

On a slightly different note, the other day I bought a jar of mango jam from the local Family Food Centre. When I got it home I noticed the brand name: Kerala's Best. I like to imagine it was made in a small family factory like "Paradise Pickles and Preserves", the one owned and operated by the main characters in my book.

-Fiction complementing reality.-