Ageless grace
#54: A 100-word story about grace of love
I know I know I know I said I was done with 100-word stories but this one demanded to be told! So, after the three 100-word micro essays I snuck in here (parts 2, 3, 4), I had to tell this one! I should declare, I’ll be indulging these micro pieces if they intrude…
Ageless grace
At 79, the aging film star, in her autobiography, admitted to having loved once. A producer—a married man.
A notorious film columnist arrived to interrogate her.
“Why tell now when he’s gone?” he asked.
“My autobiography would’ve been a lie without this vital truth,” she answered simply.
“So why didn’t you marry him?”
“That would’ve destroyed his bonds, his children, eventually broken him…”
“Ha! What kind of life was this?” he scoffed.
“Better than a life where I never met him, never found love…”
The journalist left, reporting there was nothing to share. Even gossip columnists are defeated by grace.
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-reena | 01-23-2025
I created the above story loosely basing it on a story from the autobiography of Asha Parekh—an eminent Hindi movie actress who was a star of Hindi cinema in the 60s and 70s. She released her autobiography, The Hit Girl in 2017. I was moved by her bold admission of her one true love—a married man—who she chose to not marry, and why. This is remarkable for an Indian woman, a public figure, from that era. The journalist, and their conversation, is a figment of my imagination.
Extra!
As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, one of my short plays “Crossings” (~15 minutes) was shown online by Yuganugoonj—a global literary arts organization, on Sunday, Feb 23rd, 2025.
In case you missed it, you can watch a recording online on YouTube here:
Well done, Reena! Asha seems like a person of sensitivity and depth. I particularly liked your ending: “Even gossip columnists are defeated by grace.”
👌