This week I read, "Karma," which was recently selected for One City, One Story in Boston. Copies of the story are being made available all over the city and you can also access it for free online HERE. And for my New England friends who weren't already planning to attend the Boston Book Festival, consider this blog post your sign from the universe. Rishi Reddi will be on hand to give a talk about her story, along with lots of other yummy, juicy author types. Let's show Boston and Copley Square some love.
"Karma" is the story of Shankar Balareddy. I like Shankar. I do. He saves the dead birds that are landing on the streets of Boston, confused by the lure of city lights at night. He cooks his wife a nice dinner. And though I was left feeling like I wished Shankar could treat himself with the same persistence and care as his beloved birds, Reddi has certainly crafted a wholly believable character, the kind of person that can't get out of his own way. There is a Shankar in all of us.
Shankar has some help in staying downtrodden though, in the form of his successful brother, Dr. Prakash Balareddy. Prakash is....Prakash is.....Prakash is an asshole. There's just no other way to say it. He kicks his brother and his sister-in-law out onto the street. He hangs out with a real hoity-toity crowd. He's entirely unlikeable. Except that he's not. I empathized with Prakash and I'm curious if other readers felt the same. We all like Shankar. We all want to point him in the right direction, away from the deceptive lights that cause him to smack against metaphorical skyscrapers. But because of the honesty in Reddi's story, we also have to admit to ourselves that if Shankar was our brother, we'd have probably tossed him out too. "Shankar!" we'd yell. "Get it together!" Watching Shankar circle the drain of victimhood would be, well, draining. Because there's a little bit of Prakash in us too.
Boston is a minor character in the story so if you love the city you'll love this read. And anyone who has any sibling issues will surely connect too.
Thanks for blogging about this story so that I could find out about One City, One Story. I enjoyed the story very much. To me, Prakash was a typical American doctor, full of himself and willing to push aside his own family for his own success. Unlike you, I did not empathized with him I felt angry that he was so quick to dismiss his brother like that. Thanks for sharing the story!!
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