Smoke By Ila Mehta Analysis

The story “Smoke” composed by Ila Mehta is narration of the life of a widow who also happens to be a doctor. The story line is generated along the confines of the life of the doctor. The main character the story is Shubha the widow doctor. She is the protagonist of the story while the antagonist of the story is her mother-in-law, Ba. The story is developed at time when Shubha mother-in-law is about to return and she will have to go and pick her at the train station. At the start of the story she is just around the house contemplating of how her life is. She moves up and down to ensure everything is in order before her mother-in-law arrives. After ensuring everything is properly arranged, she goes to the station to go pick her mother-in-law. On

Katya’s lover for instance sees Katya as just a mean of entertainment. When she tells Katya to tell her about her childhood memories, he had no interest in that story, he wanted to pass time. Katya longs for a man who would understand her and would listen to her real stories because the only person he knew had made her feel miserable. “She peered into the pile now and tried to read is she would ever meet a man who would understand her pity and her shame, to whom she’d tell her real stories, the ones that mattered , the ones that haunted her, without dressing them up with descriptions of labour-camp preschool, her red tie, or her family’s lack of bread and toilet paper.” (Lara 59). The male figure to appear in this story disregards her and shoves her out of the store using hera s ashield to push other people outside, “Half crazy with fear and pain, I kicked with my knees, which was exactly what he needed. He used me as battering ram, crashing me into the crowd to push people out of the store. I don’t remember how long it took him to clear the room.” (Lara