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    The Rainbow
    The Rainbow
    The Rainbow
    Ebook87 pages1 hour

    The Rainbow

    By Deepa Kantamaneni

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    About this ebook

    Rainbow is a book for a contemplative reader. It is a book of shades of women’s lives in a changing India. The stories are carefully crafted to be detailed yet precise. The reader will experience the Vibrancy of India

    The Heroines of my book can be victims, they can victimise, they foray through the changes with courage and strength. Desperately grasping at freedom, we stay rooted to our traditions. These traditions, though evolving and sometimes vanishing, are the source of our strength and they form the pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow.

    I believe, you will finish reading the book and enjoy this ride it will take you on, but, your real measure of this book, will be a week after you’ve read it. What you thought was a good read is indeed far more. It will bring back lucid visions of the scenes and the taste of it will linger. It is when you will see it has reached inside you superficially; Unquantified, its Impact is inarticulate but will be reverberating in your mind for a long time to come.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateMar 24, 2017
    ISBN9781365846298
    The Rainbow

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      Book preview

      The Rainbow - Deepa Kantamaneni

      The Rainbow

      The Rainbow

      By

      Deepa Kantamaneni

      Text Copyright © 2017 by Deepa Kantamaneni

      All Rights Reserved

      ISBN Number: 978-1-365-84629-8

      All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the Author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

      First Printing: 2017

      Contents

      Preface

      The Sunset

      Silence

      The Date

      Served

      Animal

      Afflictions

      Girl

      Preface

      India, the land of culture, carved in traditions. Beautiful, vibrant, sunny and robust. What a Land! What a people! The new world has ignited her interests and she is now evolving. Trying to be more, ever hungry for the new, and rooted in the old, she branches out and soars up making the unbounded journey towards modernism.  Doubting yet defiant, frightened yet forward, Victimised yet valiant, uprooted yet unmoved. Consequentially, it is a curious case to the objective eye.

      The role of the Indian woman, is the epithet of the progressive disorder. Rainbow is a small endeavour to show the readers, the trials the woman of today must pass. The many challenges she faces as a young adolescent or a woman spited. The distress of the deceived or the desolation of the broken. The pot of Gold at the end of each story is the strength and hope that can be found

      To a discerning mind, the messages between the lines is more varied than the story itself. Rainbow is an endeavour to make one contemplate and dwell on matters not wholly unimportant. 

      The Sunset

      She always loved the sunset. The Orange Sun lighting up the Earth and sky with gentle and soft hues. Anya, was in that glorious age, where growing, changing, dreaming, feeling can come together to confound and compel the possessed, to challenge and defy in an everlasting cycle, where one only breaks free of the cycle but never succeeds in destroying that inharmonious cycle and leaves it untouched for posterity. In other words, she was sixteen.

      This tropical country, growing fast and changing faster, much imitates the inharmonious cycle of adolescence, absorbing all matter questioning later and eliminating some while keeping some after much altering its earlier form. India, is at that phase where all is unfounded and unrooted. Tethered to her rigid roots she pulls towards the west to absorb all the western ways.

      Half understanding them, marvelling at their simplicity and carefree norms but failing to fully replace succeeds at colliding the old ways and the new and the consequences are vibrant damage.

      Anya, in a generation of such change as had not been for hundreds of years before was fascinated with the possibilities of uprooting every norm. Such was her nature that she dreamt unusual dreams of dancing life away, of being free, of being unbounded by routines and text books, to explore every hidden corner of this world and herself. She looked at the sun and wondered where it must be rising next and how it must be to chase the sun around the world. All she wanted was to absorb the hues of the world and travel with the sun far and wide.

      However, these dreams were impeded by one colossal problem. Parents.

      Her parents true to Indian heritage had an arranged marriage in their early twenties. Swamy had been taken to visit the prospective bride’s house as is tradition. The bride to be, was draped in silk and vermilion was placed on her forehead in a circle, her eyes were lined with Kohl and her hair was made into a modest braid to show she would make a humble, enduring wife. With her head bowed and hardly uttering a word Roopa’s heart thumped at the thoughts of her future. To avoid this, display of anxiety of fear of her being misconstrued she held her head down stiffly answering in a soft and slow manner. Swamy sensed this apprehension in her face and seeing the dignity of her demeanor in such a situation, fell deeply in love with her that moment.

      As per the custom, they had their first child in their first year of marriage and named their much-celebrated boy after Swamy’s grandfather who died at a young age from a snake bite while he walked through the paddy fields. Swamy remembered his love and kindness and named his son in honour of his grandfather, Venkatesh. Three years later they had Anya. To their surprise Venkatesh had not been boisterous or difficult but Anya was always unconventional and her parents amidst the worries of paying for their ever-increasing education fees were concerned for their naive and forward daughter.

      It is how teenagers are, Her father reminded his wife.

      She is too dreamy, and loves her times away from home. This is a dangerous pastime. A girl must behave like one, Her mother complained.

      The adolescent rebel was on her terrace watching the sunset. Ensconced against the water tank, her eyes were dreamy. Her mother called her name but she did not hear her. She watched the transition of the day into night and the transient beauty of the sunset had taken her away to thoughts of the mysteries and many adventures life has to offer. It was her father’s strict voice that brought her back.

      Anya come inside. It’s getting dark.  Her father commanded.

      Sure dad, Can I go to the lake? Anya asked still not fully understanding her father’s disapproval of her being outdoors after sundown.

      What have I Just said? Her father yelled.

      Anya’s face stiffened. She slowly climbed down the ladder of the tank and walked towards the door. With a heavy sigh, she went to her room down the stairs and shut her door.

      Life’s too cruel, she thought. How she wished she had her freedom.

      Freedom to Anya was something she could not discover by being immured within the expectations of her family.

      Being from a traditional family, a Brahmin Tamil speaking family, her joys seemed eccentric to her father, amusing to her brother, dangerous to her mother but, totally unacceptable to all of them. Anya was beautiful. She stood tall and slim. She had dark curly hair and a fragile face. Her dark eyes and luscious lips fit into her flawless face like a painting.

      Her mother came home and exclaimed, Anya keep your head in your books and behave like a girl from a good family.

      Anya sank into her sorrow. She felt she tried

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