Response: "Once in a Lifetime"

And cancer strikes again! “Once in a Lifetime” is a story told by a girl named Hema, who is speaking in the 2^nd person to a young man, Kaushik and recounting a time period in which their families shared a single home for a time. The story explores the narrator’s relationship with her parents and in turn the family’s overall relationship with Kaushik and his parents after they move back in town after a time in Bombay.

I didn’t really know how to read this story because there is a general lack of structure other than the chronological order of events that the narrator experiences and explains. I’ve also only read a couple of stories written in this fashion and as a result, it makes for quite a slow read. The constant usage of you and your in the story grabs the reader and demands full attention, assimilating and incorporating the audience through an intimate connection. 

Although it is full of real and emotional tension, there is little to no true conflict. Throughout the entire thing I was expecting a Notebook type of resolution in which the main characters are married and this is a story that she reads to him to help him remember their past together. And I was pulling for Hema’s character up until page 499 when she announced her dislike of Doctor Who and revealed little to no interest in Isaac Asimov books. After that point, I couldn’t really remain interested in the story, I was expecting a decisive climax but all we get is a short scene in the woods where Kaushik reveals that his mother has cancer. This ending, to me, left me satisfied because we can imagine what happens in the following years, but the adoration the narrator feels towards the boy is never resolved and the