India Rough
Extracted from Scrivener backup: India Rough.bak4
Draft
The wind blew dirt into my mouth until it crunched
The wind blew dirt into my mouth until it crunched between my teeth.
The red Coca Cola truck was here now, trying to upsell my dad on Fanta. He sold his bottles for 20R but the guy told him everyone else sold theirs for 15R.
Lucky came back in asking if he’d left his phone there. No one answered him as he patted his jeans and scanned the counter.
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1944
1967
1978
1985
2009
“The lightning. It’s scarier. It fills up the whole sky."
"It hits everywhere. It breaks windows, TVs, cars."
"Ah, we have tall building in Canada. They have lightning rods that abosrb."
"We should make it mandatory to havve those on all the new kotis”
Gurjit went back to Canada and finished his Engineering degree. Harman oversaw his farms as promised and took his share of the crop stipend as promised. With his share of the stipend, Gurjit had contractors build a three storey house on his estate. Harman sent him photos along the way and Gurjit picked the tiles for the floor and the size of the windows.
Gurjit met Lily during his final year of graduate studies. She liked Jazz too and tolerated hockey to appease him. They married after he got promoted to chief at the firm. They raised two girls named Sahar and Talia. Gurjit took the three of them to his village home when Sahar was 6 and Talia was 8. Sahar played with the village kids but Talia fell ill with fever. They had to go home early. Neither ever took a liking to learn Punjabi. There was plenty to go around in Canada. In his will, Gurjit left the village home and farms to Harman’s children.
Research
Brainstorm
Part 1: Dad’s dad in Burma - WWII
Part 2: Mom’s childhood until marriage
Part 3: Dad’s POV - trucking in Bangladesh - logistics driver in Bangladesh
Part 4: Mom in Canada
Part 5: Child grown up enough to return to India.
Theme: Nothing resonates through the ages. What really does it mean to be of the same blood?
Punjabi life. A less corny take on it.
Part 1: Battle in the jungle. Rationed liquor. Comrades in arms. A stranger in an alien world. Colonial rule and instruction. Racism. Scars that go some distance to explain later life disposition. He gets land as a result of fighting the Japanese.
Part 2: Like the story of Pukka. A girl helping her father with his life. She gets married off to a quiet man.
Part 3; The married man takes his wife home. He immediately leaves to Bangla to drive truck. Then he comes to Canada as a refugee as things go bad for Sikhs.
Part 4: The woman tries to raise her son at home while the parents are there now. She has a tough time until her father tells her to take her son back to Canada.
Part 5: The son returns to India and tries to take what he is owed.
Framing device: The family tells their stories in a journal like fashion. They are telling stories with their own colour and brands of exagerration. The whole thing is told in third person like a famous chronicler of famous people taking his hand at doing the same for a common family.
Part 1:
- Starts with scene in the heat of war, but not action packed. Tie in with Battle of Imphal.
- Scene with the soldiers asleep and getting rations. Puran saves his liquor (alkie later in life)
- Another war scene. This one has Puran be a hero.
- Puran comes home and is given land as a gift. The land is on the Pakistani side of the border. He gets the land swapped and ends up on the Indian side. He sets up a house and marries. He gives birth to 2 two boys and 2 girls.
Part 2:
- I almost died. When I was born a pup stole me by the neck.
- Then my father moved us to Punjab. He sold drugs. I helped him and he taught me many things. He opened up a shop. I ran it until I had to get married because my brother ran off with a girl.
Part 1 Arc: A young man goes to war and rises above all odds to become an unlikely hero. He comes home and proceeds with life as if all is fine. Really, what does it say of a man if he is one that excels the most while at war?
Pat 2 Arc: A girl is empowered temporarily at home until the patriarchy strikes again. Is it all in vain?
Part 3 Arc: A young man leaves his newly married wife at home and goes trucking. He makes friends and gets enbroiled in a new war to the West. Once the war is over he must come home to a Punjab in turmoil. He decides to run again, this time to Canada.
Part 4 Arc: A married couple arrives in a new, cold country and tries to make it. Their parents get in the way and the relationship strains. The mother raises the child against all odds and they thrive. The man is around.
Part 5 Arc: A grown up child comes back to India to do some reckoning. He tries to get his father’s land back from his brother who stole it while he was in Canada. He finds a country he has very little in common with. The story ends with the man’s future life. He marries kids that know very little of Punjab growing up. He brings them to their summer home for some time.
Voice: Part 1: Old school - gruff - crass - brave - simplistic
Part 2: curious, strong, empathetic
Part 3: anxious, gullible, friendly
Part 4: shell shocked, tired, scared, protective
Part 5: over-confident, lost, fake, spoiled
The story of a family forgetting itself. Immigrant life.
There is no overarching institution that governs life. The nation changes from Raj to India to Canada. Religious fervor comes and goes. Ethnicity is muddled.
Part 1: The first time seeing a plane.
Outline
- Pritam is on guard duty. He sees movement in the jungle. It is a foreign animal.\
- The Japanese attack happens.\
- The men are on a train home. The war was over a while ago and they are settling the post-war era.\