View of Stars , livre ebook

Marshall Cavendish International - Devi Pillai Anitha

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140 pages

English

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Description

Especially for fans of love stories comes a collection written by established and new authors. This anthology is partly inspired by true stories and partly by well-known epic tales. A young woman of Peranakan descent in Singapore, a Malayalee woman thousands of miles away from Singapore at the brink of WWII and an interracial couple in current times, all face a similar predicament - Do they break free from conventions and follow their beckoning hearts? A young man with no future nor prospects pines for his one true love in his kampong, a May-December couple's plans for their second chance is threatened, a young impressionable woman falls for a man-child - Will fate give them a helping hand? What if Cinderella's evil stepmother had loved her? What if the hundred nights of pursuit of the 10th-century Japanese court lady Ono Komachi took place in Singapore? What if a single decision, one moment or an unspoken wish changed your life forever?

Sujets

Short story

Romance

Informations

Publié par	Marshall Cavendish International
Date de parution	06 novembre 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789814928373
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0450€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

2021 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196.
Tel: (65) 6213 9300. E-mail: genref@sg.marshallcavendish.com
Website: www.marshallcavendish.com
The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Other Marshall Cavendish Offices:
Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 800 Westchester Ave, Suite N-641, Rye Brook, NY 10573, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd, 253 Asoke, 16th Floor, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Marshall Cavendish is a registered trademark of Times Publishing Limited
National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Name(s): Pillai, Anitha Devi, editor. | Cheong, Felix, editor.
Title: A view of stars : stories of love / edited by Anitha Devi Pillai Felix Cheong.
Description: Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2020
Identifier(s): OCN 1198974906 | eISBN: 978 981 4928 37 3
Subject(s): LCSH: Love--Fiction. | Short stories.
Classification: DDC S823--dc23
Printed in Singapore
Poem I Watch the Stars Go Out by Felix Cheong from I Watch the Stars Go Out (Ethos Books, 1999).
Cover image: Shutterstock
For Theijes Therrat Menon,
may you find a love that brings you a lifetime of unbridled joy and comfort.
- ADP
For Dad and Mom,
in remembrance and love.
- FC
CONTENTS
Preface
BYGONE YEARS
An Unusual Arrangement Anitha Devi Pillai
How I Met Your Mother Felix Cheong
A Peranakan Love Story Joyce Teo
Delivery Yeoh Jo-Ann
Freni s Mark Meira Chand
PERSONAL SPACE
Unknown Triangle Robert Yeo
Altair and Vega over Ghim Moh Linda Collins
The Sun, the Moon and Soup at Iftar Nuraliah Norasid
MIND S eye
The Midnight Mission Rachel Tey
One Hundred Fleeting Moments of Love Elaine Chiew
The Queen of Heaven Nicholas Yong
Snowskin Jean Tay
MODERN LOVE
My Girl in Singapore Vicky Chong
Married People Noelle Q. de Jesus
Take Back Time Aysha Baqir
Close to You Dennis Yeo
Art and Artifice Inez Tan
About the Editors
About the Writers
PREFACE

What love is, when love is not. How love is, why love is not.
We can peel its petals many times over but the sunflower that is love remains as bright and unyielding, its face always opening to the light.
It is a thing of splendour and beauty: child-likeness and sometimes, the likeness of a child; aged and at times, damaged; hellbent and oftentimes, a godsend.
We can sing of its mysteries and hurts, its giving and forgiving ways, how it bends and mends.
In praise or lament of love, we have written arias and pop songs, plays and parables, movies and TV shows, books and poems, Facebook posts and blogs. Indeed, generations have generated words that wound around wounds, and band-aid of pages that began in remembrances past and looking to infinity ahead.
Yet, in spite it all - or because of it - love is its own clich . All we can say about it, hand to heart, a kiss hovering in the air, is it still moves, like God, in mysterious ways. We experience and know it, in our time, by our own reckoning. And by its particularity and peculiarity, love is paradoxically universal.
It was the universal traits of love that was the topic of conversation one morning between Anitha Devi Pillai and Anita Teo that planted the seed for this anthology. Both had love stories of their strong-willed grandmothers to share and when Felix Cheong joined the conversation, he too had one about his parents. The conversation continued with other writers and seventeen heartwarming and memorable stories were collected, many of which were inspired by true events or by well-known epic tales. The stories include author commentaries that provide an additional lens to understand the writers inspiration and creation.
This book would not have been possible without the unwavering faith of managing editor Anita Teo, senior editor Shereen Wong and designer Lynn Chin. We are deeply grateful that they helped to weave their magic in making this book a reality. We are also indebted to Assistant Professor Wernmei Yong Ade for her kind endorsement of this anthology as well as the fifteen authors who have contributed stories to this book.
We hope that A View of Stars: Stories of Love will make your heart smile and sigh with us.
Anitha Devi Pillai Felix Cheong
I WATCH THE STARS GO OUT
F ELIX C HEONG
Perhaps love
is a view of stars
through the telescope of years,
now aged,
no longer uncommitted
in chosen places
nor fearful
of that strident moment
when light explodes
into a million shards of heart.

AN UNUSUAL ARRANGEMENT
A NITHA D EVI P ILLAI

It was a new day in 1924 and a special birthday for Chellamma; for not only had she turned twelve, her wedding too was barely a few hours away.
Her mother had woken her up at dawn to give her an extra-long massage that day with homemade oil made from coconut, red hibiscus flowers and almonds from their garden. Each family in the village had their own concoction of oil but theirs was the most coveted one. The villagers believed that Chellamma s family s pitch-black hair and youthful skin were attributed to their weekly oil baths and massages using their family s century-old secret blend of homemade oil. No one in her family had grey hair nor wrinkled skin - well, at least not until one was in their late seventies.
To her great annoyance, she was not allowed to swim and linger in their family s fresh-water pond with her cousins, despite it being a special day. Instead, all she had for company that morning was her grandmother and aunts.
Bathe quickly! What will they say about our family if you are not dressed when they arrive? And don t go climbing trees for mangos with Gopalan did you hear me?
Chellamma rolled her eyes in annoyance. She had not even seen Gopalan in the last two days.
Everyone had something to say to her that morning. After more rituals and prayers, she was ushered into a room on the upper floor of their two-storey house. Now that she was to be married in a few hours, she was told that this was her room henceforth. It was her favourite room in the house as it faced their village s only river. The womenfolk had more instructions on her new daily routine from the next day onwards as a married woman. She barely paid attention to what the women were saying.
I wonder if he is handsome.
She had not meant to speak those words aloud. But the women in the room understood her. None of them had seen the groom either. All they knew was that she was lucky to marry him as he was a man of considerable means and grit. He had, after all, left the comforts of his sprawling home at the age of sixteen in search of a job in Singapore. Rumour had it that he was not on the best of terms with his maternal uncle and was eager to fly the coop as soon as he could. And now having made his own fortune, he had returned, at the age of twenty-one. This time he was ready to take a bride in his hometown.
Soon it was time and her grandmother entered her room with her family jewellery, a stunning two-piece cotton sari with thick gold borders and a blouse that stopped a few inches below her breasts. Chellamma was the first amongst them to don a blouse under the sari wrapped around her chest for her wedding. In keeping with the times, she did not have a hair wound into a round coil on the side of her head. Instead, her mother parted Chellamma s luxurious thick hair in the centre and plaited it loosely. The womenfolk, who were gathered in the hallway, cooed in delight when they saw her for the first time in her wedding attire, remarking how times had changed in their ancestral home.
The day itself was etched in her memory, for that was when she met him - her Krishnan.
She had been impatient to get a glimpse of him without being seen from the western wing of the house where the women stood. She tiptoed and craned her neck over her aunts shoulders just as he entered her home with an entourage largely made up of bare-chested men in stark white dhotis and a piece of white cloth over their shoulders.
Krishnan was a tall man with broad shoulders and at least two heads taller than all the men in her family. He certainly looked so out of place in her home in his long-sleeved white cotton shirt that he had rolled up just above his elbows and khaki-coloured pants from Singapore. He was also the first man that she had seen in her community who did not spot a tuft of hair on his head.
But he didn t notice her. Like everyone else in the room, he too was transfixed by the hanging brass oil lamps around the four sides of the courtyard and the sight of the 1,001 lotus flowers her older brother Gopalan had gathered to decorate the courtyard. Delicately strung lotus garlands were woven around the teakwood pillars and brass chains holding up the oil lamps. There were purplish-pink lotus flowers in every nook and cranny. It was unusual to decorate the home so extravagantly for a wedding ceremony. In years to come, the village folk would reminisce about a brother foraging the surrounding villages for his si