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Bathing Elephants
A collection of six short
Bathing Elephants – Suchin Srisai breaks away from her traditional moneyed family in Bangkok and sets up her own orchid business in Chiang Mai. On one of her frequent holiday trips to Phuket she meets Michael. Then the tsunami hits.
Inshallah – Will the future of Iraq be fear and widows? Jamilah is orphaned after a terrorist attack and is taken in by an old stall-keeper. The story follows the adventures of one day in Jamilah’s life and the love she brings to the old man.
Sequined Slippers – An orphaned sister and brother, 16 and 14, end up living alone. When the sister is working as a waitress and looking after her brother who is still in school, it works well. But he leaves and mysteriously turns up in a rich woman’s home.
I Was Killed in a Car Accident – Betrothed at birth, artist Xiao’li runs away from her home in Beijing when her marriage day approaches. She meets a man who makes her happy but is broken-hearted when she learns the fate of the man she was supposed to marry.
Stone Breaker – Rai trains to be a Nepalese Ghurka but ends up in the hot swamps of the Terrai. He becomes a wealthy landowner and his arranged marriage is a success … until the Bhutanese authorities make him a refugee.
Wild Orchid – Love at first sight threatens to tear a family apart – but the two marry and are gradually accepted. Then the young husband’s discontent with life in Myanmar and his struggle for a better future for his family sets a new course for everyone.
Bathing Elephants – Suchin Srisai breaks away from her traditional moneyed family in Bangkok and sets up her own orchid business in Chiang Mai. On one of her frequent holiday trips to Phuket she meets Michael. Then the tsunami hits.
Inshallah – Will the future of Iraq be fear and widows? Jamilah is orphaned after a terrorist attack and is taken in by an old stall-keeper. The story follows the adventures of one day in Jamilah’s life and the love she brings to the old man.
Sequined Slippers – An orphaned sister and brother, 16 and 14, end up living alone. When the sister is working as a waitress and looking after her brother who is still in school, it works well. But he leaves and mysteriously turns up in a rich woman’s home.
I Was Killed in a Car Accident – Betrothed at birth, artist Xiao’li runs away from her home in Beijing when her marriage day approaches. She meets a man who makes her happy but is broken-hearted when she learns the fate of the man she was supposed to marry.
Stone Breaker – Rai trains to be a Nepalese Ghurka but ends up in the hot swamps of the Terrai. He becomes a wealthy landowner and his arranged marriage is a success … until the Bhutanese authorities make him a refugee.
Wild Orchid – Love at first sight threatens to tear a family apart – but the two marry and are gradually accepted. Then the young husband’s discontent with life in Myanmar and his struggle for a better future for his family sets a new course for everyone.
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First published October 29, 2010
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April 29, 2013
This is Leela Devi Panikar’s second short story anthology. Her first, Floating Petals, was published by NanaDon in 2007. Leela says about that first collection:
In the same way, all the six stories in Bathing Elephants have in common is the close observation and evocative prose of their author. And that is enough. The stories are longer and broader than in the first collection, emotional and resonant, yet timeless in their recreation of human stories, human emotions. It isn’t enough to read them just once.
My recommendation: Excellent. Read them both.
You can sit by a river all day long just to watch what the current carries past. Depending on the day and where you live, it could be small boats with fisherman, young children on inner tubes, paper lanterns lit by candles, or bodies. And the only thing they will have in common is the river itself. The same is true of these stories. They range from a first day at school, to running away from home, to the breaking of feet, to the death of a husband still alive. And all they have in common is me, and what flowed through my mind on the days I wrote them. (From the back cover.)
In the same way, all the six stories in Bathing Elephants have in common is the close observation and evocative prose of their author. And that is enough. The stories are longer and broader than in the first collection, emotional and resonant, yet timeless in their recreation of human stories, human emotions. It isn’t enough to read them just once.
My recommendation: Excellent. Read them both.
Displaying 1 of 1 review