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| Fragile Thread of Hope by Pankaj Giri. |
The first thing that hit me real hard as I moved towards the end of the Novel is the uncertainty of “Life” itself. No matter how hard we try, we really can do nothing about it. The story brought out the truth of how a story never ends with the person who dies but continues with the ones who survives. Of how we remember every little detail about them for a certain time only to realize that one day our mind could only give us a blur image when we hear their names. We cannot control this either, no matter how much we loved them. Our mind slowly fails us. Death of a loved one is always painful and the void never tends to be filled but Love is so stronger than the pain for it gives a mother a reason to live for her child when her husband leaves for heaven. Just like the pain we have when we think that a particular person will stay but Life has other plans and they leave, this tends to push one into their own deep pit of insecurities and Love is the only way out. We see how Soham and Fiona dealt with their own demons and their own pain but unknown to them both Life played a role and Love helped them move beyond. Joseph was a pure soul, for it isn't easy to fill someone else. He filled Fiona so she could find Soham later. Every end is a beginning to something. Sometimes we need to trust the plan of the Universe.
I also know how we tend to fall for familiarities be it person, place or patterns. We feel safe with familiarities. Fiona going back and looking for Joseph's picture after his death, one can see how Soham was unfamiliar to her and she went back to what the reality was. This is very normal when it comes to instances in real life as well.
This novel does act like a mirror to all the readers how we tend to take things that matters the most to us for granted. Our Parents; just because they tend to stay even after all the pain we give them, we just expect that they will never leave. But Life always has a cruel way of teaching us lessons. For Fiona did get a second chance after she realised her mistake and repair the bond with her mother at the same time she wasn't lucky enough to say goodbye to someone who she loved her the most, Joseph which takes me to my next thought of how we take our moments that we share with someone for granted too, we never know when will it be our last yet we hope forever exists for us.
This book does bring out how we all have built a wall in order to prevent from getting hurt all over again. We all have our insecurities, our own demons that we fight with but a little hope always stays that love will creep in the cracks of the broken heart and dismantle the wall. For it is love that will not look what one lacks but tries to strengthen the other and oneself with what they have.
The conversion of religion or the marriage that takes place between two different religion in the story does brings out the essence of religion that it is supposed to make you feel like you belong and make you calm. Talking about the marriage, we see how Sharon raises her child alone after the death of her husband, one could tell that the journey wasn’t a smooth one.
On the other hand we see the marriage between Soham and Fiona, where acceptance of past, being able to be who they really were, and not having to compromise on the faith they had on their religion is very beautiful to read. Also talking on the same context I would like to highlight how Joseph not just took care of Fiona but Sharon's as well, he staying with his wife’s family definitely didn’t make him less of a man but more of it because he could take care of two family as one. This does break the idea of how a woman has to leave her house after her marriage, which leads to her being a guest at her own home and in her new home she never is a daughter.
The taboo of marrying a widow here somewhere gets overshadowed by the idea of Soham and Fiona belonging to different religions but the idea that Soham was aware of all the differences and yet decided to take the step is quite appreciable. It takes a Man to make the choice and stick to it and it's outcomes.
We shouldn't forget the role played by Joseph's parents. They also only had one child and letting him stay with his wife's family was a very genuine step because Sharon was a widow and if Fiona was to leave she would have been all alone and somewhere the loss of her husband and not having anyone by her side would eventually lead her to being sad and hurt.
Joseph's mother tries to run away from seeing Fiona after her son's death because the living and the death aren't different in many ways. For the living does remind people of the one who died. But eventually she accepts that life isn't fair but we can make it a little easier for the one who survived. For sometimes they are just breathing and not living after the loss they had to face.
Joseph's parents also blessed her when she was moving on with life. We can look at this a little sarcasm the writer has implemented for we know what reality is like and this could be seen as a hope we can keep for the future too. They did understand that Fiona wasn't going to stop loving Joseph as one cannot unlove( if that is even a word to say) somebody. We may love again but just not the same way. The idea of a husband's family being your own family is brought out in a beautiful manner because Joseph's family accepted Fiona when she was their daughter in law and even when she chose to move ahead.
The story gives a lot of hope, even if it is just a fragile one but it does give us hope. Life maybe full of pain but we do find someone who will walk by you through the rain. It wont be hard to tell that we eventually meet who we are supposed to, even if for a short period of time. People are like the path our soul had to go through to reach where it is now.
Despite knowing that it is just a story and could be manipulated it did give me a hope that I, myself am a story and stories always end beautifully.
Definitely recommending it. It was a heck of a roller coaster ride for my emotions and I am glad I chose the path.