When I was reading Twinkle Khanna's The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad, what I found is that the writer shows an amazing perception of the character's needs without being so obvious about it. But googling about the work, what I saw is a kind of patronising attitude to a writer just because she is a celebrity daughter and wife apart from being an actress. However, the short stories are quite readable and the story that I loved tbe most in this collection is "The Sanitary Man from a Sacred Land".
The first among the four stories is "The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad" is about Lakshmi who wants ten jardalu trees planted for a girl child so that the child's future is secure right from her birth-"ten trees like the ten fingers which we women can hold our own destinies firmly in our hands". Thus begins the ritual of the jardalu, which is celebrated in her village with the birth of a girl child, when people from any caste, even those with no land of their own can plant trees for their daughters.
The second story "Salaam, Noni Appa" is about love that transcends all barriers. Noni Appa and Binny are two elderly women who live a life of seclusion. The elder sister Noni Appa is rather sweet on their yoga teacher Anandji. What starts as an eagerness to meet him, ends up as her sole reason to live. When Noni Appa is ill, Anandji leaves all his business aside, packs his luggage and comes to live with her. This story is very touching for one remembers the ambience of love that breaks all rules though the other stories are much more conventional.
"If the Weather Permits" begins in Kerala and is about Elisa Thomas, hailing from traditional Malayali Christian household. When forced to get married, she marries a photographer friend of hers but is disappointed when the bridegroom turns suicidal. Divorced, she gets married to Chacko, from a wealthy Christian family and shocked into a sense of deja vu. All she wants to know is whether she has to return to her ancestral home that smells of fish moilee.
The fourth story, according to me, is the best story of the collection. Ms. Khanna has based this story on Padma Shri Arunchalam Muruganantham who is a social worker who works hard to remove the taboos associated with menstruation. Bablu Kewat loves to bring surprises for his wife -"four bangles, a packet of orange bindis, a 5star chocolate". Saddened by the rag that she uses for her monthlies, he brings her pads and new kinds of experimental pads that are made of absorbent material. He questions the women of his acquaintance about their monthlies and this earns him the name pervert. His friends tease him that he should have been born a woman so that "it would have been so much easier to just test the pads yourself". But his determination wins and he becomes the inventor of the low-cost sanitray pad making machine.
The stories are varied in their themes but very endearing to the reader. What I feel is that the last among them is the most touching, of a man who wants to bring happiness to his wife and ends up being a hero to many Indian women from the nearby villages.
#TwinkleKhanna
#thelegendoflakshmiprasad
#love
#divorce
#geriatriclove
#menstruation
