I have been wanting to read ‘Chronicles of an Hour and a Half’ almost since I first heard about it but was a little sceptical about all the hype. When I actually started reading the book, far from being disappointed, I was almost overwhelmed. The premise of the story is simple. In a small town in Kerala, an older woman who’s husband is in the Gulf has an affair with a much younger man. The town is on edge because it has been raining continuously for six days and nobody likes being cooped up indoors for that long. Someone sees the man going in the direction of his paramour’s house. He tells another, who puts it on WhatsApp, and before you know it the entire town seems to know about it. Amplified by social media, things rapidly spiral out of control, resulting in a terrible double tragedy.
The story is told through multiple narrators- some of whom are active participants and others mere observers. Many are overwhelmed by how something they set in action takes on a life way larger than anything they could have comprehended. Others are distressed by the part they played in the setting things in motion. The book shows how the power of social media can be unleased to disastrous consequences. If not for WhatsApp and Facebook, the people involved would certainly have faced the social consequence of their action, but it would never have been as tragic as what actually happens. The book is a cautionary tale which shows how the actions of one person can trigger much larger consequences that they ever envisaged.
The story is told through multiple narrators and it is sometimes hard to keep track of all of them. But by the time the pace of the narrative picks up, the task becomes much easier, and the story flows quite seamlessly. I particularly liked that two of the narrators were young children- they brought a unique perspective to the events happening around them.
One aspect of the book that really stayed with me was the female solidarity. None of the men in the story were directly affected by the woman having an affair, yet, almost all of them see it as a personal betrayal by the woman. Some are perhaps envious of the man who is having the affair with the older woman, others judge the woman for not remaining loyal to her hardworking husband, but all of them believe they have the right to see vengeance. The family of the husband of the woman too want revenge, but more than that they want to keep the affair under wraps- this kind of hypocrisy is prevalent in society, where the honour of the men seems to rest in the vagina of their women.
Unlike the men, the women come as strong people in the book. Though none of them is particularly friendly with the woman who is having an affair, almost all of them dislike the way the men are reacting to something that does not really concern them. None of them appears to feel jealous of the woman for being able to fulfil her sexual desire; instead what they feel is empathy for the mother of the young man having an affair.
The relationship between the woman who had the affair and her husband is portrayed very well. Though everyone thinks of him as an ideal husband who doesn’t’ deny his wife anything (he even donated his kidney to save her life), only she is aware of how his attitude towards her is a subtle form of emotional abuse. How the characters will live their changed lives after the events of the hour and a half can actually fill another book!
This is a book that perfectly captures our current times.
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