My Dream Movie

I read A Temporary Matter again..The first story in Jumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. I am so fascinated by the story that i would love to make it into a short film some time...or, has anyone made it already?

All through the narrative I will ensure an undercurrent of lost-hope and new-found happiness --bcoz that's what I get from the story. In fact, this a story of a lost baby and the ever-fresh beginnings possible to young adults, or any human being, for that matter.


I can almost see the candle glow on the faces of Shukumar and Shobha..Light and shadow painting their emotions, their intimacy, so subtly...Their home..The kitchen cabinet with pyramid shaped stacks of pickle bottles. The drawing room couch with Shobha's proof reading colour pencils. Shukumar's study walls still carrying remains of the baby wall paper he scraped off, Shobha's white sneakers that she removes and throws away near the refrigerator, the wall-calendar she studies laboriously. The vapour below the glass lid on shukumar's lamb curry pot.

How they both roamed about among the guests, fingers intertwined, when shobha threw a surprise party for Shukumar's birthday...Shobha sitting with Gillian in a dim-lit bar talking silly things about her mother-in-law in a very mature voice; lights going off and on in the neighbourhood during power cut, The doctor forcing a kindly smile as he tells the sad news to Shukumar, The ivy-on-fire with b'day candles...and , and the tears glistening on their relieved faces lit up by the candle, in the end. I will end the movie as the flame dies down in silence...

I guess the movie has already been made in my mind, and is open to editing forever!! Thanks Jumpa, for this fascinating story :)