Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s works have a special effect on me, invoking positive perspective about life. Stories told to make you feel like part of those stories, often make the reader ponder and look upon own life in a positive manner. One Amazing Thing is such a story! The stories of a group of people in a vital situation make you think of the one amazing thing in your life.
The storyline is in the aftermath of a massive earthquake. As in her many other novels, Chitra Divakaruni sets her plot in U.S. A. A group of nine people, seven of them of Indian origin and two of them of Chinese are captured in a crashed visa office at an Indian Consulate.
For a claustrophobic person like me the situation of these people is beyond imagination. The ex- soldier Cameron in the group tries to tackle the situation at his best. Still, the situation is worsened by his asthmatic development and injuries of Uma and Jiang. Dust accumulates, water rising, food goes less and they hear the footsteps of death near them.
Above all these, they hope to rescue into life. Yet, hopelessness develops into panic, panic into frenzy and frenzy into physical violence. At this moment, Uma, an American born Indian girl comes up with suggestion-telling stories! Each one has to tell a story about a crucial incident in their life that she/he had kept secret from everyone so far.
Uma had got this idea from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. But curiously everyone in the gang agrees to the idea. They must have thought this as a last confession that might not arrive again in their life. The stories come out easily from each and every person. As each story gets finished, they realize that they all had once been in a situation that they once thought life to be a tragedy. But, they had been pulled out from those situations by one positive inspiration. Also, they had despised life at one point or another in their lives. Yet, at this moment of almost certain death, they crave for life.
Uma was the last storyteller. Just before her story finishes, they hear the sounds from above. It can be either of rescuers' machines or of the collapsing ceiling. Divakaruni leaves the reader there.
Each reader may feel differently to each story. Personally, I could feel with Lily’s aggravation to understand and gain what she wants out of life, Malati’s aspiration for growth and intolerance for injustice, Tariq’s helplessness and anger at racism, Jiang’s survival and Mrs. Pritchett’s realization of her loveless life. This is my reading. Many other readers must have felt with Mr. Pritchett’s troubled childhood, Uma’s fear for a broken family, Mangalam’s failure in marriage and love and Cameron’s guilt feelings.
Overall, there cannot be any central point or dialogue as shown as the message of the novel. Each reader would get different messages from different stories. I took the message of the night nurse to Mrs. Pritchett as the message for me.
‘Remain where you are and work on your heart. Once you’re dead, it’s much more difficult.’ (p.175)
The novel undoubtedly shows Chitra Divakaruni’s Indian spiritual inclination and reading on life. The stories have been crafted well for the readers to submerge in. Taken as a whole, this is definitely a novel to rejuvenate your spirit.
Afterword: After reading this novel, I’ve imagined at many times about an earthquake. By God’s greatness nothing had happened. I am convinced that life is worth living and that I should spent my days reminiscing on beautiful moments in life and not regretting sour incidents.
Publishers: Penguin Books India
Price: Rs. 250/-