The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha

The thing I loved most about this book, The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha, is its overall structure. The entire book is designed into stories. Each chapter is told as a different story. What better way to express the facts of life when the audience is only a child — a two-day-old child.

The storyteller writes down the story of his life through the wee hours of the night as the tiny girlchild lies fast asleep in the next room, hoping that someday she will be grown up enough to read those truths that are in some way connected very deeply with her. He doesn’t speak out the story to her. Instead, he sits silently at his desk and writes. He writes, not only because she is not old enough to understand the spoken words but also because of the lesson he had learned in his childhood. That when words grow and grow inside you until they fill up your lungs and refuse to come out, and gulp down your breath making your lips quiver like in winter… and get trapped in your chest… you can always write it down…