Fountain in a Love in Tokyo!

Most of the bookworms who have read "God of Small Things" will recognize the words in the title at once. After reading the celebrated fiction by Arundhati Roy, this phrase remained in my mind as a keyword for several days. Rahel, one of the protagonists of the story, appears in her childhood with her hair tied in the shape of a fountain with a Love in Tokyo. Her image was thus successfully tattooed to the minds of numerous readers.

As a reader and as a girl, that fountain in a Love in Tokyo was the supreme factor which made the book close to my heart. Almost all the girls might have had a childhood when their hair was tied in curly, straight or wavy fountains. And that Love in Tokyo.... Ms Roy explains in the novel what that thing is. It is a rubber band with colourful beads attached to it. I specifically remember countless sets of Love in Tokyos I had possessed in my girlhood which I had been using to play rather than to tie my hair.

What a pretty thing it was! Some of them had beads in the form of animal motifs, some were flower-shaped, fruit-shaped and so on. Once on Independence Day, I tied my hair with a toffee-shaped Love in Tokyo, which went well with the colours of the flag. Its first twisty end was in saffron colour, the last end green and the middle white. On birthdays I used glittery ones. And for regular use, I had collected umpteen of them in multiple hues to match each of my dresses.

When my hair grew long, I lost interest in Love in Tokyos. Now I have none of them with me; not even one to make me nostalgic. And gone are the days of fountain-haired little girls. New kids have begun to explore the latest fashions in hair-do. I can see toddlers with ponytails and pigtails in the yards of nursery schools, but it is rare to see some cute faces crowned with a fountain.

Let's go back to Rahel. I could immensely identify with her, both mentally and physically, while reading the book. And I believe that the sole reason behind it was the fountain in the Love in Tokyo, which brought to light the resemblance of our childhood.

Before reading "God of Small Things", I had read some of the essays of Ms Roy. Naturally, my prejudice made me conclude that her fiction also had a political nature. Now I regret very badly for that. Otherwise, I would not have missed the fountain in Love in Tokyo for so long.

I do not recall any other writer who has attached importance to such trivial but nostalgic elements of childhood. Though the title of the book defines another character in the story, I think one of those Small Things is definitely a Love in Tokyo, and the God is the author herself. That fountain of hair has been embossed on the novel to enable the reader to feel it above every other element in the work. If there is anyone who has not felt it yet, I bet, they let lose the chance to feel the hues of that fountain in Love in Tokyo....