Marriage and Mutton Curry

Book excerpt: A kimono-clad Tamil woman greets Japanese soldiers at the door while her Anglophile husband cowers in his Jaguar. Two sisters share a husband when one fails to produce a child for the longest time. An American diplomat's urgent inquires about the Malaysian treasury’s facilities are hilariously misunderstood. A daring civil servant proposes to a Ceylonese lady in his hometown mere minutes after meeting her, breaking a thousand years of marriage protocol. M. Shanmughalingam's debut collection paints, with gentle wit and humour, the concerns and intrigues of the Jaffna Tamil community in Malaya. At turns satirical, empathetic and insightful, these fifteen stories explore what happens when we hold on to—and choose to leave behind—our traditions and identities in a changing world.