The Bet

THE BET

-by Suchitra Bhattacharya

 

There are two main characters in the story – Basundhara and Debanath. The story was written from Basundhra’s point of view. Basundhara is a Bengali, educated women. The story is set in 1960’s in Bengal. Though the girl is educated and has a broad understanding of the world, but still, she is from a Bengali Indian family. After her graduation, she is pushed to marry to a well settled business man, Debanath, who was 12 years elder than her.

The girl had a dream of a French lover as her husband, but when she saw the photograph of Debanath as her husband she judge him from his looks and also did not like him. He was not much educated. As she dislikes him from the starting, she made her mind to stay away from Debanath. She was not happy with her marriage and does not want to involve in it.

In the story, bets were something which increases the gaps in both of them. Basundhara use it as trick to stay away from Debanath and Debanath was the victim of the bets. The first bet was not intentional. It just came out of her mouth, as a habit. It was on the Raag playing outside the room. This was on the occasion of their first night and what she asked for it was that Debanath will not sleep with her. She won the bet and Debanath did in accordance with the bet.

The second occasion was on her writing. Basundhara likes to write and also when she has nothing to do anything in her home, she started writing again. Writing just takes Basundhara’s whole attention, though she wanted this but Debanath did not like it, hence he start hiding her paper and pen. On this event she threw a bet that if her story will publish in the magazine, he will never stop her from writing. Story got published, but Debanath hide it from her. And later when she got to know this, she started hating Debanath more…..

The next bet was on their baby. Debanath wanted a baby girl. While Basundhara did not think about it, but just because Debanath wanted a baby girl, she said if it would be a boy. She threw a bet on this and the wager this time was that he will not demand other child from her. Ultimately she won the bet, and they never had other child. This time the gap between them expanded a lot. They start living in different rooms. As the story tell that Basundhara get so involved in raising their son and also in her writing. They both did not talk to each other and get involved in their own lives. They live different lives and like strangers, under one roof. Still, there is a liaison developed between son and father.

But one day, when Basundhara got acute chest pain, Debanath started taking care of her. During this time, she started feeling for him again. They involved in one more and the last bet. There was no wager this time. The bet is on who will die first. For me it was not clear that who won the bet, as in the story it was not clear that Debanath die or not. But he was no more in Basundhara’s life, he has gone far away.

Their relationship was at the stake for whole life, but neither of them tried to make it work out. Debanath seems to be more conservative. He did not express his feelings, but he does care for people in his life, either his father or his wife Basundhara.

To me he loves Basundhara very much but, never expresses it to her. He makes sure of her comfort, and also she should be able to spend time with him. That’s why servants did all the house chores, so that she doesn’t have to do anything. Though, they both do not speak a word, when they are together, which make the moments very awkward. Debanath was the man of his words, as the people in his work place say and it was quite visible when he always act as per their bet, but it was questioned when he hides the news that Basundhara’s story was published. 

Basundhara was an educated lady with dreams and aspirations. But being in a Bengali, Indian family, she has to sacrifice her dreams and marry to a well settled business man. Though she married to Dibanath, but it was always in her unconscious mind, that she did not like him, and hence whenever she gets a chance, she does something to stay away from him, like bets. Basundhara seems to be a strong lady, who does not care about the society. In an Indian society, where husband is considered as equivalent to god, she took a step and demands such things from him, which actually negatively affect their relation and she did not worried about it ever. She was fond of writing, especially when she does not have anything to do. When she came out of the relation, she gave her most of the time in bringing up her son and writing. She was good at writing and was able to establish herself as a good writer. She has very cold feelings for her husband and her dislike towards him increases by the time. Basundhara was a strong lady and she tried to break a lot of norms of the (Indian) society. Like when she did not take care of her husband, which is considers as a first duty of a wife (at least in Indian society). She writes and become independent. She goes out in conferences on writing and also earns fame as a writer, which as per my understanding; it must be a big deal at the time, when story was written. She found ways to create her own space in the house. And fight with her husband and lead her own way. She brought up her son, the way she wanted and gives him freedom of doing what he wants.

The marriage of Basundhara and Debanath, I would say, was a disturbing marriage. It was very clear that Basundhara was not happy with the marriage. It also reflected when she writes that her son marry to a girl of her choice. She doesn’t want her son to suffer as she suffered the whole life. Though Debanath was a caring husband (as I feel), but he was never expresses it in a proper way. Basundhara’s attitude towards this marriage was also negative. Both of them never put in any effort to make this marriage workout rather they start living their different lives under a roof.

Silver Water - Amy Bloom 

•       Research the author - ‘Genetic criticism’ can be used to connect the author and the story

The story which I had chosen is Silver water by Amy Bloom So basically the story is written by a trained social worker and psychotherapist. The story was published in 1993 in a book called come to me.  So at first when I read the story I thought that it might be experience of the author but when I tried searching more about the author I came to know about her background which says she was psychotherapist so it is possible that she might have had such experience while practicing. The way author had described the bond between sisters makes me think that it might be the bond of author and her sister.

The story is narrated by Violet who has elder sister called Rose who becomes mentally ill, diagnosed with schizophrenia. The young sister remembers how she had taken her to some opera show and sang a song in a parking lot for her and she says it was like water pouring out of silver pitcher and Jesus would love to visit earth at that time. So basically she narrates this story to every psychotherapist who comes for her sister to show that the girl who sings jingles and advertisements is not the same who used sing opera songs. The story goes on with showing the struggles of family with child’s illness. Throughout the story family plays a big role even they go to different counselors and they also act as counselor to Rose. But with time Violet moves away from family for her study and but she keep visiting home every weekend and one weekend when she goes to meet her family and Rose, that very night elder sister dies.

•       Did you like the story? / Why? Why not?

I liked the story because especially it is about hope for the best. There is always ray of hope in any situation and one should not forget that. The way the family treats the child and her illness is tremendously courageous and sensible for me. I like the description of the story and the way the author had used metaphor for everything is very beautiful. I liked it because somehow I can connect it to my life and people around me.

•       Which of the literary elements did you find the most engaging?

·         Why?

The way it is written is very beautiful. Narration and the metaphor used in story.  Plot of the story is very engaging in itself and I really like the part where the author is not completely gone into emotions or into settings. I have found it very balanced but by using some medical terms I think the story lose its charm because if it had been written in layman’s language. One can easily read and connect to it. But because of this terms I personally diverted from the story and tried looking for the word for me which was distracting.

•       Did your interpretation of the story match with other members of your circle?

·         Why? Why not?

Yes, my interpretation matched with almost all of the members but one of the member felt that the way they were taking Rose’s illness was not so optimistic, it was pessimistic. But rest of us didn’t feel like that and when we tried to engage in dialogue, we came to know that she also had similar kind of experience and she was trying compare the whole thing. But overall all the members had similar interpretation.

•       Did being part of the circle deepen your understanding of the text?

·         Why? Why not?

I think it really helped in a way that we sat and discussed about particular story and it is amazing to know different people’s opinion and interpretation because everyone carries their own world with themselves. I also liked the idea of literary circle because you can actually come to know the parts of the story which one might have missed because sometimes I as a reader see some parts only which attracts me. So in this way literary circle really helped.

•       What have you understood about yourself as a reader?

I have realized as a reader that first of all I try to imagine the settings and then characters and emotions. I have also realized that I was trying to be in those settings with the characters, imaging the atmosphere. But, as an outsider, I try to be there untouched by any emotions trying to understand what is happening but as I read it again I was actually feeling the emotions and feelings of the character.  Also, started building connection with them.

•       As a language educator, what insights would you carry about literary discussions?

As a language educator I cannot say many things but I must say that this kind of discussions in classroom really helps children to understand different perspectives and views about the story and helps them to think critically.

A  Muslim Girl goes to School

The story “A Muslim Girl goes to School” is much more relevant to the real life situation as it shows us the real condition of Muslim girls.  The issue which is brought out through this story is relevant and the way in which the Muslim girl becomes successful in completing her education gives a motivation to the rest of Muslim girls. The struggle of the girl was much more inspiring and it keeps on reader involve into the story as the curiosity to know more about her increases in the story.

If we think from the reader’s point of view the story was much more interesting it involved me kept my constant engagement with the story as the story was related to the real life situation. If we think about this story from the theoretical point of view we would be able to get all the important elements which the an story has for ex. Plot,Character and Setting. The plot can be seen in this story strongly as the story shows us the connections between various incidents which were happening constantly but, the good thing is that the incidents was showing connectivity and the relevant nature.The plot of the story gives the feeling of the real life situation and is involving the reader into the reading the story. The content was of the story was good as it was presenting the real life situations.  The plot of the story involved me emotionally and at one instance I felt that the story is related with me as well.

The next important element which I think was strong into the story was Character. The character of Muslim girl was strong as it was one of the leading character. The character was presented very strong and as the characte was strong the whole plot was revolving around the character. THe character of the Muslim girl was based on the real life situation. The chacter was connected to rest of the plots. The character was presented as it is one of the struggling character. The character of Muslim girl presented her own struggle for getting sucessfull in the life. The character was related to the life of the every muslim girl who struggles to percieve education. The character was presented in the motivational way.

The setting is  also regarded as one of the most important element of the story. The setting from which the muslim girl was , was actually too much attached to the culture. The Muslim Girl was not having freedom to percieve the education as per her wish. The freedom of muslim girl was restricted by her pamily members, the way in which the family members were behaving was obivous as the setting from which they belong was having strong cultural sense. The setting of the story helped in connecting the other elements of the story like character and plot.  The setting from which the girl belonged  was not allowing the girl to come out its circle, the setting was more sticked to religion and the members of the society as it was presented as the muslim dominated area.

The story was interesting but I think that this story can’t be used for story telling as the strong sense about the religion comes out from it. This story can be used particularly for motivating girls but we should have to look it from others perspective as I think that it will make the thinking of the child bais. 

TOPI

I was not an avid reader but when I started exploring the reading material I used to look for the topic specifically for storybooks so that I could get a sense about what is a story all about. I applied the same strategy while selecting the text and I selected ‘TOPI’, the reason I opted for it was because of its appealing title and I thought that it would turn out to be fun loving and humorous because of its name but eventually it came out in a way which I could not think of. The story is set in a small town which is more or less in Bihar and our author is also from Bihar so that is why he was able to bring out the picture clearly because he might have experienced it or observed it. The story portrays a time when poverty, unemployment, corruption was very prominent which was affecting the lives of the people at that point of time.

The author Sanjay Sahay talks about a protagonist Ramai who lives in a small town which is in Bihar and the story moves around his struggles and problems which he is facing in his life. The loss of his job provides a building plot for the story and it adds up to the societal view on things, the behaviour of his wife and so on. The story takes a turn when he drives the jeep of the DSP who is a very powerful person and that journey remarks changes in his life.

The story talks about the struggles of a common man in daily life and it gives one a vision about how difficult is to survive in this life when there is no job. It is very poignant at one point that how one has to survive in society and how work is being done on the basis of bribe which eventually leads to corruption. It talks about if one has approach of another person like in the story Ramai’s mama knew the DSP who is an authoritative figure. I was able to relate it quite well to what happens in our lives in which corruption, bribe, approach is so common and work becomes difficult if it is not supported by any of these.

The plot of the story takes an interesting turn when Ramai wears the Topi of the DSP without realizing it, he wanted to protect him from cold until and unless he realizes that it was a symbol of power and authority. He realized it when he got salute from one of the traffic police who was at his duty. After the realization also he did not remove the Topi and at this point the story gives us a space to question that why he did not remove the Topi and so on. He started liking the phase of power at that particular point of time and he wanted to see what happens more with this symbol of power and authority. It might be possible that he kept on wearing the Topi because he was already very frustrated with the problems that he was undergoing and because of it he did not remove it. On the other hand it also depicts a common behaviour of a human being who has been deprived of lot many things in his life and when one gets a chance to be in power no one leaves it and every one look forward to experience it.

The text gives one space for exploration in which one could raise lot many questions about one’s life, about the entire notion of power, poverty and survival. It makes one sensitize of how people are surviving and how they get influenced from others who have some sort of power and authority. It talks about struggles of a common man which is quite connecting and nothing was alienating for me when I was reading the text. It also gives a sense of how people fall into a trap when they are helpless and for their family they end up doing things which they never want to do it.

I realized that how an interesting title can turn the tables entirely the other way round which one could not even think of. It was an enriching experience for me and it reminded me of a saying that ‘one should not judge a book by its cover’.

small story of Janki

Umar quid by Hajira shakoor

This short story written by Hajira shakoor  and this story published in the journal “subeh Adab” in the 1977. She wrote this story in the Urdu, her literature reflects the problem faced by the Indian women and it is mostly about the middle class women struggle.

          This story deals with the problem of dowry, women identity and its own struggle with her. In this story writer of the story described the women situation which is narrated by her husband. Janki is the main character of the story but from the beginning character “Janki” in silent mode. In the story supporting character her husband describing his own view about his wife condition, so we cannot get janki’s perspective about her situation, may be the writer intentionally made janki’s character silent so that we can think and make assumption about her situation.

           Janki belongs to lower middle class but belongs to the higher caste “Brahmin” which is reputed cast in the Hindu religion in India. Her father is teacher in the ordinary school. Her husband knows her from the childhood and they grew together. He also knows her nature like she was very shy and quiet. He also mentioned that anything not worthy to notice in her. It’s fairly shows that he was not had any interest in her. When her marriage fixed by her father, he promised to groom party for some dowry which is became a reason for unmatched marriage. Story running in the husband’s flashback when the Janki was died and he regrets that he failed became an ordinary man when he was thinking about the Janki’s situation.

This short story made dent on the Indian society and its culture. Janki  sacrifices  her  life  for  the  pride  of  her  father  and  for the dowry  which was  not paid by  her  father. In the Indian society every time man is hero and women is helpless and every time depended on the man and who live at the Mercy of the man. In this story Janki depend on the father and after the marriage she depend on the husband.it is very natural in the male- dominated society  where  the  women are  slave  and  they can’t  take  decision for their  life  in this  if  we assume that when groom party was  demanding  more dowry from her father may be  janki will stand  up against  the  dowry and marriage and could have  refused  to marry but  no, how can she do it?  it has been happening form so many decades that  women’s are not independent, if  you saw the Ramayana, Mahabharata, character of Sita and droupadi  are not very similar  to janki but  they also indicate  the  same  things  which is  happened  with the janki. Like Sita not choosen groom for her. Her father called many kings to marry with Sita in “swayamver.”droupadi married with five “Pandvaas” if  you see  that  those  incident  which was happened  in the  Ramayana and in the  Mahabharata they shows the  women situation in that  time  and  Janki situation is same. She was helpless because she can’t choose her life partner from her choice. Writer talk about that  jamidar  son stand up like  a national hero and  finalized that  he will marry with Janki, nobody asked to the Janki that  she want  to marry or not.

Writer very fairly and step by step plots the problem in front of the reader. After marriage when she went to her husband home her husband told her that “I expect you will never cause my mother any displeasure and will never make my brother and sister feel as if this house is not their own. I have faith in your tranquil personality and trust you will always remember to all thoughtfully.” Janki may not be expecting this thing from her husband because she already faced very embracing thing in her home and she already in fear when her husband and she came her husband home. We can only assume that what the janki was thinking on that time? Why she didn’t speak with her husband  why  she  took her  hand  back to take  the responsibility of  home  when her husband’s mother was  giving to her? Writer tried to analysis her situation though her husband points of view that she repaying the dowry as a form of services. It’s happened when the daughter-in-law enter the house without or less jewelry, money and with other things she faced so many taunts from the  her husband side and she spends her life with  pain and suffer.

Janki only love her father because he was person who cares the Janki but when he died janki brakes down from the heart and she started crying and said that “Babuji, in whose care have you left me?” these  words shows  that Janki don’t have any  emotional attachments with her  husband’s home and husbands family. Her husband also mentioned that she care the children like a nanny because she don’t show any attachment with children, she fulfill their needs and demands as per the requirement.

                         If we analyze whole story, it is plotting very nicely and accurately the problem of the Indian women’s and there situation in the society after independence which is very negligible in the Indian society. The main character was Janki, story moving around her but her quietness raising the question in the heart of reader. If she speak or talk in to the story it will destroy the suspense and the story of the heart. She wants to leave not one question in the mind rather she left so many question in our mind.

For Esmé:-- With Love and Squalor [Dhruva]

For Esme. Summarizing this story is particularly difficult, for me. It's about an American soldier, I suppose, who is in Britain towards the latter half of the war. He heads out for a walk on his last day of training, before he gets involved with the invasion, and ends up watching a school-choir practice session that he really enjoys. He notices one girl in particular from that choir, as the most attractive [he thinks she's approximately 13, at this point] as well as the one with the best voice there.
He leaves the practice and ends up in a tea-room, shortly after which the girl walks in, with her younger brother and nanny [or guardian, or something] in tow. She notices him staring, and walks up to him and strikes up a conversation, introducing herself as Esmé. I'm not going to try to summarize the conversation, because doing that would kill it, for me; it was fascinating and bizarre, and disjointed, to a point where it needs to be read to be believed, I think.
The conversation ends with him promising to write her a story, and her taking his mailing address so she can mail him to begin a correspondence. The story she wants needs to be squalid, or moving.
We then transition to the squalid, or moving part of the story. Sergeant X is sitting in a room, clearly in bad shape, physically and mentally. Corporal Z, a robust young man named Clay, enters his room and generally harasses him by being healthy and cheerful, until he leaves in slight nervousness and disgust, mixed with sympathy. [Their interaction also, I cannot record in detail, there was too much in it, this will stop being a summary at that point and turn into the entire story in my words.] It's at this point that Sergeant X sees a letter that has reached him after a long time [given his movement with the army]. The letter is from Esmé, beginning their correspondence. Upon reading the letter, X suddenly feels sleepy, the representation of some kind of catharsis. As he says himself 'You take a really sleepy man, Esme, and he always stands a chance of again becoming a man with all his fac-with all his f-a-c-u-1-t-i-e-s intact.' From the beginning and the end of the story, it seems fair [thought nothing is every to be taken for granted in the world of this author] to assume that this entire story, the story we've just read, is the story X wrote for Esmé.

The author is one J.D. Salinger, a notoriously odd writer, a recluse, but also hailed as one of the geniuses of our time. With this assessment, I agree, his seminal book 'The Catcher in the Rye' is one of the greatest things I've ever read. That too followed an odd path, very different from most books that were popular at a time, following a strange, disjointed, stream-of-consciousnessesque pattern, where the narrator and principal character was a very alienated and thoughtful teen aged boy. 

But back to the present. I thought this short story was fantastic, to be honest, but to be more honest, I probably can't tell you why. As my group members will attest to, my review of this story can probably be summed up as 'I really liked it; it was so Bizarre'. I'm not even entirely sure if those two statements, or sentiments, are related. 
One thing I really enjoyed was the way language was used here, especially in the two conversations, particularly so in the conversation between X and Esmé. Word choices that the author had made got me scratching my head for hours, and possibly annoyed my group members a lot as well. Our group was able to agree about very few things, and any time we would, we'd come up with something else that struck one of us that was alien, as an idea, to the rest of the group. 
Among other things, I'm unable to separate what I think is written in a matter-of-fact way, and what I think is written fantastically, though I do think both these elements exist. I suppose what I really like is the fact that one can read this story and enjoy it so throughly, all seven of us, and yet have completely different reasons for liking it, or even completely different interpretations of it. I think a part of the reason for that is that the author wanted it to be that way, but if I claim that I'd be accused of intentional fallacy, and my accuser would be right, so I would like to humbly retract that statement. 

I most enjoyed, as I mentioned, the dialogue. I suppose through that I also enjoyed the characters a lot. For some reason I remain fascinated with X's wife, a character who showed up as a reference thrice in the story, each in a seemingly insignificant role, but I think if you're to immerse yourself in the story you can't avoid her, she's the reason he's writing this letter, in a way, she's who stops this story from being a romance, and she's referenced in the letter that brings X back to life, as it were. Apart from her though, I enjoyed the construction of all the characters a lot, Esmé, X, Charles in particular, and also Z, and to some extent Loretta. Even with the smallest of references, you can form an opinion about these characters, even if you feel you can't form a picture of them; it's genius. 

The plot, the setting, all of it hinged around the interactions, so while I won't disregard them as contributing factors to the story or my enjoyment of it, I won't talk very much about them. Suffice to say that I think this story could've been about a man in a hospital or a woman in an office, set anywhere in the world, and I think an interaction like that would have had me enjoying it anyway, though that's a patently ridiculous statement to make; in any other situation the interaction would have been different. I hope you understand what I mean, if not, I apologise, bear with me. 

Did being a part of the circle deepen my understanding of the text? Well it certainly confused me often, which is definitely a step towards a deeper understanding, it's just that I didn't take any more steps after that one. But as I mentioned, this is a story everyone got something different out of, so hearing all those opinions certainly was interesting. That said, I'm not sure how many of us were willing to change our views [if we had any] at all, so I don't know if in that way it could have been said to have served any point. I did enjoy the discussion enormously, if nothing else just as a forum to make intelligent conversation about an intelligent book, which is why I was really glad we got to have a second discussion, even though there may have been some people who may not have thought it was important at all [but hey, extension, so no complaints I suppose]. 

What have I understood about myself as a reader? Precious little, apart from the fact that I pick on things that most people don't consider very important, and that sometimes I can't tell if I'm being antagonistic towards a book for a real reason or not. That's actually quite an important realisation I suppose, but I can't take it seriously because I last thought about it in the context of Harry Potter [you broke my heart, Joanne, I will never be the same again]. I tend to focus on language as much as literature, which makes reading both fascinating and very very difficult for me. 

There's more to all of this, but too much exposition frightens me. 
Oh wait, one more question. 
What insights do I carry about literacy discussions? Good grief. I feel like I'm being interviewed. 
I'd make sure everyone has their say, I suppose. If there's one thing this story has given me, it's the reinforcement of the idea that there's almost never [never that I've come across anyway] a right and wrong about how to read, or what one has read. 
I also think accountable talk is important, but sometimes overrated. One of the best things about a great discussion around a story is that it can get you talking or thinking about things that you never have before, and they may not be related to the story at all, but the story is what birthed the process that you're engaged in at that moment. 
Encourage people to challenge, criticize, question, and also agree with, but defend that agreement. For everything, one should have a justification. It's sadly ironic that at this point I feel like I'm not in a position to adequately justify that position. 
This seems in theme with the rest of this E-Journal entry, so I'm going to sign off now. Best of luck, peer reviewer. 
Goodnight. 

For Esme

This is a story of a militant during the second world war time. The story is written by  J. D. Salinger. His full name is Jerome David Salinger. He was an American author who started his career with writing short stories for magazines in Manhattan, New York, USA.The story starts in 1945 when he receives an invitation for a wedding from Esme and he goes back into the past and writes down this story.This particular story is of a young girl Esme that this militant person meets at the church in which children's choir practice was going on. The militant just happened to be there. The militant closely observes Esme during the choir and then leaves the church as the choir ends. He goes to the near by cafe and spends sometime there alone. After a while Esme, her younger brother and the care taker enters the same cafe. The girl, Esme approaches the militant and he feels warm and connected to talk to her. This young girl, Esme tries to be witty for age during the conversation with the militant. The militant observes her patiently. Esme's younger brother also makes a move to have a word with the militant in a very innocent manner. Esme kept telling him about her family. After an interesting conversation Esme, her younger brother and the care taker had to leave the cafe. However during the conversation the militant promised Esme to write a squalor stories on her humble request and Esme promised to write him a letter. After she leaves the story takes turn into the third person writing another story. This story was written by the militant for Esme as promised. He narrates his life at the camp in third person to keep the anonymity. He also mentions that he had received her letter and her father's watch from Esme.

While reading the story I kept the context of the characters very well in mind that its a war time and the story is written from the militant's point of view. The story is sequenced in a little confusing manner for me as it went into flashback at different times. This confusion was cleared off by the group members during our discussion.

Theme of the story according to me is about a random conversation that a militant had with a very young girl at a cafe. They have a small talk as strangers and feels the connect and may be some warmth too. As mentioned above the setting and context of the story is war time. There are not many characters in the story. Majorly the story involves Esme, her brother- Charles,care taker,Army man, his wife, mother-in-law, his friend at the camp and his girl friend. However there was a mention of a dog too. But I'm ambiguous about his his real existence in the story. I doubt it could be entirely his imagination of the dog being there. The friend's (Clay's) girlfriend, Lorreta, was a psychology student.

I think the most striking take away for me from the literary discussion of this story with my peers was that each one of us had a variation in our interpretation of it. Each of us identified different key points which we felt were highlights of the story and then through the sharing process, making sense of the story in terms of the theme, the characters, the dialogues etc. became a richer experience.

During the discussion there were couple of questions raised by all the members and clarifications were given to all the questions. There were not much arguments or disagreements regarding the interpretations of the story other than if the the story has a touch of love story effect or is it just a simple fiction story. Well for me there is a little bit of affection attached with both the parties in the story. They share some good connection. Otherwise why would Esme give her dead father's wrist watch to the man whom she met at a cafe when she was 13. I definitely would agree that there is no romance involved in the bond that they are sharing. And why is he affected by her wedding? in reference with the following, All the same, though, wherever I happen to be I don't think I'm the  type that doesn't even lift a finger to prevent a wedding from flatting. Accordingly, I've gone ahead and jotted down a few revealing notes on the bride as I knew her almost six years ago. If my notes should cause the groom, whom  I haven't  met, an uneasy moment or two, so much the better. Nobody's aiming to please, here.  More,really, to edify, to instruct.

All of us agreed that the story is sort of semi autobiography.  As a part of our literacy circle discussions we came across some of the questions and some were answered some are still in the air and much to ponder upon. One of the questions was did they continue writing letters? Who knows? I personally don't think that they wrote letters to each other quite often. If they had then the author would have mentioned in somewhere in the story. Next question was why did the author started narrating story in 3rd person in disguised manner? Well from story's point of view some of the group members said may be the author is not able to trust his own voice hence taking the third person's stance he can reason out his own character in that way. The next question that we came across was that was the author depressed? or too sarcastic? Did the author feel disconnected from the world? Well for according to my understanding yes I think the author felt little disconnected from the world because he was living at the war site in war time and army men become quiet, aloof, lonely and silent persons. Yes the story had a sarcastic tone at times but I also felt that the story ended on a happy note. Was it bizarre for Esme to give her father's watch to this man? I think it was. If I were at Esme's place I don't think I would give away my father's wrist watch to a stranger that I'd met couple of years ago in a cafe. Lastly I think all of us are still not very clear about the change in 3rd person writing mode and is there love attached from either of sides?