The lives of women, in all their fierce complexity, is put under a microscope in this lovely, effervescent collection.
These deceptively simple stories uncover both the complexity and irony of women’s lives in Bhutan today. In ‘I am a Small Person’, a despised woman uses her feminity as a means to control a man; the young girl in ‘I Won’t ask Mother’ suddenly feels empowered and confident when she makes a decision without consulting her mother.
All the stories take place in rural settings, to which urban influences bring gradual change, and tensions surface between the new and the old, or the traditional and the modern. For many rural women, being able to connect to the city and all its perceived power and glamour becomes a very real aspiration, something they did not know they wanted and now can think of nothing else. This yearning is exemplified in ‘Look at her Belly Button,’ where a young woman effortlessly slips
out of the role of a farmer to become a ‘real Bhutanese’ urbanite.
With wit and poignancy, Tales in Color and Other Stories shows how ordinary lives, choices and experiences are both remarkable and poignant.