Homesick (31 page)
Authors: Roshi Fernando
•
As dusk gives way to night Nil’s son Max finds Rohan’s old guitar and Victor’s small
Thammattama
drum, safely stored in the dining room. He takes them out, and between them he and his uncle Mo start to play quietly. Nandini walks into the sitting room, and as she passes Max she tousles his glorious long black locks. She switches the floor lamp on so that everyone is bathed in the warm glow of the here and now. She thinks of other parties, she thinks of glorious times when Victor’s voice soared above the rest: his laughter echoes still, in Mo’s easy taps of the drum’s skins.
“Aunty, what was that song Uncle used to love?”
“Which one, which one?”
“You know, the sweet one,” but Nandini cannot remember straight away.
Preethi sits with her arm hooked into Simon’s and watches her mother. She wonders whether her mother is getting old, that she can’t remember the song. So much left unsaid between them, she thinks, and that is a good thing. She watches Nandini settle herself into her corner of the sofa. Then quietly Preethi says, “It was
‘Ma Bale Kale,’
” and they all nod, smile. Nandini claps her hands in a sliding motion. There is no sense of estrangement or sadness directed toward Preethi. She is simply there with them.
Next to Simon, on a low leather footstool, Mumtaz sits
with the photo album held close to his chest. He is simply there, too.
“
‘Ma bale kale, Ammage Ukule,’
” they all sing. Nandini has no memories of her life with Victor before this room, this house. Here they had all grown up. Here, their life had happened.
I would like to thank the following people for their guidance, help, and often love: Tom Saul, Stevie Davies, Ira Fernando, Edward Saul, Isobel Saul, Miranda Saul, Spiky Saul, Nigel Jenkins, Mali Fernando, Ishani O’Connor. Thanks to Elisabeth Bennett, chief archivist at University of Swansea, for her invaluable help with the research for “Research.” Thank you, Su Chard, for the photo. Thank you to John Tams for permission to use “Rolling Home” in “At the Barn Dance.” Thank you, Euan Thorneycroft, for everything. Thank you to Celeste Fine. And many thanks to Lexy Bloom and Alexandra Pringle for all their advice and help.
Roshi Fernando grew up in southeast London but resides in the Cotswolds with her husband and four children. She received her Ph.D. in creative writing from Swansea University in 2011.
Homesick
won the Impress Prize for New Writers in 2009 and was subsequently short-listed for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2011.
By Roshi Fernando
Reading Group Guide
ABOUT THIS READING GROUP GUIDE
The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s discussion of
Homesick
, the award-winning, debut work of fiction by Roshi Fernando.
ABOUT THE BOOK
“Roshi Fernando is a powerful new voice … [In
Homesick
,] charm, humour, and poignancy alternate with dark trials … The book offers complex, mosaic characters and compelling storylines … Fernando’s insight, wit, sensitivity and versatility mark her as a striking new talent.” —Leyla Sanai,
The Independent
From the winner of the 2009 Impress Prize for New Writers (U.K.) and finalist for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, a stunning debut novel about an extended Sri Lankan family—a kaleidoscopic view of contemporary immigrant life, by turns darkly funny, sad, poignant, and uproariously beautiful.
It’s New Year’s Eve 1982. At Victor and Nandini’s home in southeast London, the family and their friends gather to ring in the new year. Whisky and arrack have been poured, poppadoms are freshly fried, and baila music is on the stereo. Upstairs, the teenagers have gathered around the television to watch
The Godfather
again while drinking pilfered wine. Moving back and forth in time, from the 1970s to the present day, and from London to Sri Lanka and back again, we follow Victor and Nandini’s children: Rohan, Gehan, and in particular dyslexic Preethi—funny, brash, and ultimately fragile. We also meet troubled Lolly and her beautiful sister Deirdre; wonderful Auntie Gertie; and terrible Kumar, whose dark deed will haunt the family.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What does the title mean? Who is homesick? Who
isn’t
?
2. Would you call this a novel or a collection of connected stories? Why?
3. Throughout the book, Fernando moves forward and backward in time, with characters coming to the forefront and receding. What was Fernando’s intent? What effect does this have on you, the reader?
4. Who is the main character in the book? Who did you feel most connected to?
5. In the title story, the younger generation watches
The Godfather
over and over on video. What connections can you draw between that film and
Homesick
?
6. Racism and anti-immigrant sentiments are laced throughout the book. Which characters seem best equipped to deal with the world in which they live? Who seemed most adversely affected by the treatment they receive?
7. On
this page
, Victor says, “We belong
nowhere
. But if we belong anywhere, it is
here
…. And that is it.” What does he mean by that? Do the others agree with him?
8. When Kumar is released from prison, he keeps nothing but the fluorescent jacket, “for that, he thinks, truly belongs to him.” (
this page
) Why does he choose this one item? Why does it belong to him?
9. The theme of freedom runs throughout the book. How do the characters’ definitions of the term differ? Why does one feel free, while another feels bound?
10. At the end of “The Turtle,” Fernando writes, “And later, months and years later, when Lucas and her daughters are willowy and stand tall next to her, she thinks of this moment, on this beach, as the moment of knowledge. The moment she covered what was exposed. The moment she opened what was shut away.” (
this page
) What moment is this? Why is it so significant?
11. Why is the story about Preethi’s adolescent heartbreak called “Sophocles’s Chorus”?
12. Several characters in the book are homosexual or experimenting. How is their behavior shaped by the community?
13. What does Mumtaz’s broken English tell us about him? Why does he relate to Charlie Chaplin? Were you surprised by the circumstances of Mumtaz’s reappearance later in the book?
14. In “At the Barn Dance,” Fernando includes the following lyrics, from a song called “Rolling Home” (
this page
):
Round goes the wheel of fortune
,
Don’t be afraid to ride
,
There’s a land of milk and honey
,
Waits on the other side
.
There’ll be peace and there’ll be plenty
,
You’ll never need to roam
.
When we go rolling home, when we go rolling, home.…
What do these lyrics signify, for Preethi and in the book as a whole?
15. “The Terrorist’s Foster Grandmother” pivots on a substantial coincidence. How might things have played out differently if Gertie and Mumtaz hadn’t been seatmates?
16. In Sri Lanka, Preethi thinks, “Here she realizes one day, reduced to nothing, she has achieved a purity of happiness. And she is ashamed, because all around her is death.” (
this page
) How can Preethi be happy here? Why is she?
17. Toward the very end of the book, Nil scolds Preethi: “Either you struggle and survive or you go under. And we’re not going to let you go under.” (
this page
) What other characters would have benefited from this advice? Do you think it will help Preethi?
SUGGESTED READING
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith;
Small Island
by Andrea Levy;
Arranged Marriage: Stories
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni;
The God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy;
Howards End
by E. M. Forster