Book Review: The Small-town Sea

This is one of the books that made me go - I can hardly wonder at the state of this world - the one that leaves gaping holes in us. The one where the cruelty spills over yet and lets these wounds go unnoticed for far too long. The one that tends to leave in its wake either broken shells or butterflies that fly gracefully despite their handicap.

I wonder what Bilal and Shivan's friend in 'The Small-town Sea' by Anees Salim turned into. Is his a story of loss that he survives with courage or of abandonment that led to a ruinous adulthood? He is stoic on the outside, as much as he is wilting inside, as one tragic event after another, mercilessly creeps into his life. His dying Vappa wanted him to learn to walk alone, all the while sowing a fear of independence deep within him. His mother and grandmother wallow in self-pity on Vappa's death. He, on the other hand, sheds unseen tears and spends sleepless nights waiting for the four squares of white on the floor that the mornings brought along. All his anger can barely be expressed as the yearning for that yellow shirt with olive epaulettes, on the mannequin in the store by the railway lines. Soon after, Umma walks away, far away into another life, taking his little sister with her; but leaves him behind in a place he hardly knows as home. Vaappumma, left as his caregiver, could do only so much in spite of all her hopes to do right by her grandson, before she follows her son into Jannatul Firdaus. While Shivan just fades away from his life gradually, Bilal is snatched away by the sea. The sea that was supposed to bring solace to his Vappa in his last days. The sea that had remained unchanged since the beginning of time. The sea by the small town he was banished to.

Who was to be blamed, when everyone he held close to his heart disappeared forever? Who could he have turned to for help when life, as he knew it, was gone in the blink of an eye? Such is the paradox of life, they say. Life is never fair, they say. Come to think of it, I can only say how odd is life - I started 2021 reading 'Shuggie Bain' and ended it with 'The Small-town Sea'.