Three Generations
Extracted from Scrivener backup: Three Generations.bak2019-09-08T22-01
Draft
Arrival
They give you champagne as soon as you sit down.
The seat reclined all the way back, to make a completely flat bed.
Outline
1: Arrival
The son makes his way from Toronto to his ancestral Indian village. He receives a cold reception.
Beats:
First-Class Flight
Baggage Claim
Drive to Hotel (or nap in car)
Hiring Guards
Drive to Punjab
Arrival at Cousin’s Place
Visit to Home
The son takes a first-class flight home. He looks out of his element. It is his first time having port and a plate of cheeses. He orders the beef and says it isn’t as good as the one he gets at some Toronto dive (steak queen?) The scene shows off his ability to act normal in a fish outta water’ situation. His internal monologue describing the experience contrasts to his external interaction with the other passengers and the flight attendants.
He leaves the plane and get to see Delhi from his view. He gets a lift from a driver in Punjab. He has brought large suitcases with provisions we do not see. He also retains some guards that are hired from Delhi so they don’t have allegiances back in the village.
He gets to his cousin’s village and meets everyone who’s there. The place is relatively meagre. He gets a tour around and sets up his room with his food and entertainment. He asks for things he would hope to find. He also gives the family a monetary gift for taking him in.
He sleeps the night, and makes a point to drive to his ancestral village to say hellos. He gets there and they let him in. They have only known of his arrival since he called them from the airport in Delhi, giving them overnight to prepare. He shows up with one guard driving, and his cousin in tow.
The family makes a show of letting him in and getting him something to drink. He tells them he has his own drinks due to being from Canada, but it shows as being afraid of being posioned.
They show him the part of the house that’s supposed to be his. His father left his mom and never remarried. His father’s brother has 3 sons so he has to divide up his share a lot. (I need to figure out the family situation to not make it too similar to my own).
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Research
Can i do a double story between the Indian boy going
Can i do a double story between the Indian boy going to India to claim his inheritance and his mother coming to Canada to chase a better life for her son and The son’s grandfather in Pakistan selling drugs to chase a better life for his family.\
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They are all chasing something that the other generations don’t value anymore.\
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The son wants the house and land of back home because he views it as having sentimental value & he’s willing to spend capital and put himself at risk to keep it.\
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The mum wants to give up the life in India in order to get a better life in Canada where people say money is abundant. He doesn’t care about sentiment, but wants capital and no risk.\
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The grand-dad has no perception of the future. He only knows the village he was born in. He works hard on the fields and has terror dreams from Burma in WW2. Pull up the story of the soldier from my mum’s story that I typed out and build that character. He sells drugs maybe and has a daughter that he teaches how to defend herself. When his son gets into trouble, he marries his daughter off to find peace.\
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The story of a family thru 3 generations - told in unison, with the intersections coming at the end, creating a great climax thru tying things together rather than explosions. The story set most in the future can have it’s own hints of tying in to the future version of this story.\
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Perhaps incorporate the tech component into the story via chapter headings. Only if it fits. The challenge here is that the story’s going to be told non-chronologically.\
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The Pros and Cons of non-chronological\
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Pros:
Can jump wildy in time zone\
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Stories in one sentence\
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Three generations of a family each take a stand, with the repercussions felt through time.\
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A discommunicated son returns to his ancestral home to fight for his birthright.\
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A woman forced away from her country & husband, raises a boy alone in a foreign land.\
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A shell-shocked man tries to adapt to a changing India for his family’s sake.
The mother is really religious back in Canada. She reads from her gutka nightly.
What are the aspects of Sikh/Punjabi culture I want to cover?\
- The pillars of Sikhism - the contempt by grandpa, the devotion by mama and the lapse by son\
- Alcoholism - the contempt by mama, the indulgence by son and the (perhaps) lack of it in grandpa’s time\
- Work Ethic\
- Community Pressure\
- Role of Men\
- Role of Women\
- Violence (Marshal Race)\
- Cuisine\
- Prayer\
- The turban - The grandpa wears one, the mom wears a chuni, the son is clean-shaven (or make him turbaned, so he looks more like me.)\
- Family\
- The role of elders\
- Marriage\
- Farming\
- The village\
- Caste\
- Skintone\
- Politics
How do they each appear in each other’s stories?
Granpa: Mom appears in the story during the later chapters once he’s settled in the village
Mom: Her Dad appearsin the first chapter when she visits home and then again to advise her right before the separation. The son appear in the later 2 chapters as increasingly rebellious.
Son: Mom appears via phonecall. Grandpa is at the old village home (or he has just recently passed, creating the trigger incident.) If he is alive, then he provides the biggest gem of wisdom to the story. He may die during Son’s visit.
Son
He was raised in Rexdale in a working class household.
He recently made a lot of money via credit card scams. He isn’t used to having this much dough and acts accordingly. He desperately wants to join the ranks of the new rich.
Credit Card Scams: His tamil friends are the drivers of it. His skill is using his charm to get people working in retail with access to machines to be involved in chipping.
The operations runs like this. There are fixed ops and runs (Trees & ?):
There are leads, which he provides but also has a network that provides them to him.
Then there is an insider. This is the person who has access to the machine in an establishment.
The fixer (Son) and the insider work together to create a window: an opportunity to come in and chip the machine.
Engineers came in to chip the machine during the window.
From there the CC no’s would get collected. Before they could start harvesting, they would maybe go and get the chip out?
Then there were guys who were runners. They would use the stolen CC number and put them on new cards and use them at malls. A common scam was for guys to get their girlfriends to go into high-end stores and use the numbers to get designer purses and then re-sell them. They also used the CC numbers to guy gas cards or gift cards, the easiest way to get something close enough to money.
When does he explain this to us? Perhaps he tells his cousin about this to impress him?
He could meet someone on Tinder who he matched with in Delhi (or Frankfurt) during his transit, but now chats with in his Village.
Voice
Idea: Have each generation talking to the next one. “That’s when you decided you wanted to leave.” What are the pros and cons
Pros:
Unique
Lends itself to the idea of generational knowledge being transactional
Adds a personal touch, and serves as a way for the characters to have a one-way conversation with the next one.
Cons:
Unique (weird?)
Hard to keep track of
Could be confusing
May fall apart at a certain point.
This serves as a big spoiler for Sons journey if he doesn’t have a kid yet. It shows that he lives through the story. It won’t keep the suspense up.
Practise: They handed me champagne as soon as you sit down. They also have water and orange juice if you don’t feel like drinking. I felt like drinking.
I took the train.
”Your grandfather."
"Your mom”
Idea: Have a standard 3
rd
person prose. Find a more subtle way to add unique voice.
Use the descriptors to do it.
Mom: