Family Matters

"If only we could have the impossible, he thought, we could vanquish unhappiness. But that was not how things worked in the world."

I read the book "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry, more than a year ago. It was the most sad yet an eye-opener read I ever had. It is fiction but I can't help correlate it with reality. Some things that happened in the book and the respective characters' circumstances did happen in real life.

"Remember, people can take away everything from you, but they cannot rob you of your decency. Not if you want to keep it. You alone can do that, by your actions."

One day, I was in Chapters. While I walked around and browsed over different titles, I came across Rohinton Mistry's works. I didn't realize that he wrote three previous books before "A Fine Balance". So, I jot down the titles. Once I got back home, I put  a request for "Family Matters" in the library.

Reading the book made me think about my own family-- the relationship I had ( or lack thereof ) with my late father and my attitude towards my mother and younger siblings.

As with any good book that I read, I always make it a point to take note of phrases that I like or I think, impacted me in some ways.

So, here's one...

"Everyone underestimates their own life. Funny thing is, in the end, all our stories--your life, my life---they're the same. In fact, no matter where you go in the world, there is only one important story: of youth, and loss, and yearning for redemption. So we tell the same story, over and over. Just the details are different."