[Spoiler Ahead]
Although this is the first time me reading a Humayun Ahmed novel, I’ve known him since forever. As a kid, I remember my family waiting for his Eid comedy telefilms to start up back in 2001-2006 so we could munch on the grand feast on our living room sofa and laugh heartily at all their one-liner jokes.
We don’t get telefilms like that anymore after his death, but I’m glad he wrote so many books to get a feeling of the old times whenever we want to again.
Now, about the book, as I’m a slow Bangla reader, it took me a while to finish it, but it was so much fun. It is like his usual stories, at first it’s funny but before the end, one must die to break your heart.
In the most twisted way, the middle-grade version of me felt heard (for the first time in my entire life) through the characters of this story as it gave the reader a hint of the magnitude of nosiness of our society, about how much, just how much people suggest – no, oppose - their thoughts on you, how you should do this and that and what you shouldn’t be doing to a point you just want to run away.
So in short the story is about a happy family falling under the spotlight of chaos after the mother runs away with another man, leaving her husband and three little girls behind.
She gave her lust a way and left three little girls to fend for themselves while she still breathed under the same sky. The woman then sent a letter to them that said ‘when you grow up, you’ll understand,” lol, I’m a reader who’s old enough to know what she did was absolutely unacceptable, contradict the wall if you disagree I don’t give a f. Although this character is fictional and spoke very little, I hated her from the bottom of my heart from the beginning till the end. I felt the most for the girls; it isn’t easy growing up in our society with a history like that in peace, so those three girls seemed the strongest to me.
The most heartbreaking part (for me) was when the husband was willing to forgive his wife even in his last breath… and you tell me all men are dogs. heh.
Alright so maybe because this is amongst my first Humayun Ahmed reads so I got a little too emotional and sucked into the story, either way, I hope u enjoyed this… very long review (I just noticed)
Ratings: 5/5 stars ‘cause why not?