This book is a tale of friendship, love, food, plights of leprosy patients and an ode to the gift of life. Sentaro was a convict who worked in a Doriyaki restaurant. After his boss passed away, his wife became the owner of the shop. The wife didn’t take much interest in the shop due to her ailing health. The sales were not high and Sentaro ran it to suffice for his needs. One day he saw an old lady,Tokue across the street admiring the cherry blossom and smiling at him. Later the lady approached him and requested for an employment to help him prepare sweet bean paste. She stated that she had fifty years of experience as a confectionery expert. Though Sentaro was skeptical on hiring such an aged person but after continuous persuasion Sentaro hired Tokue. Tokue completely changed the face of Sentaro’s business. The sales not only shot up but there were days when Sentaro had to close the shop before closing hours as the stock got exhausted. Things were brightening up for Sentaro. There was only one hitch. Sentaro never wanted Tokue to interact with customers because of her old age and crooked hands.
Sentaro was not able to keep this under wraps for long and one day his boss paid a visit unannounced. She enquired about Tokue and the story behind her crooked hands. Though Sentaro never enquired with Tokue about the reason of her deformed hands but Sentaro’s boss informed him that Tokue was a leprosy patient and he should immediately remove her from employment as this might affect the sales and people might fear coming to the shop.What followed was Sentaro’s journey to discover more about this disease, his bond with Tokue and his journey to explore his abilities as a Doriyaki chef.
This was a short read and after a very log time I cried over a book. The book explores the pains of the leprosy patients in Japan and the cruel treatment which the patients received before the Leprosy Act was instituted. The story delves in depth the social taboos and the stigma which the leprosy patients have to face and is very much prevalent in current times as well. The communication between Sentaro and Tokue through letters is so heart warming and it would make you want more. There were a lot of wow moments but what I realized is that certain social stigmas are so strong that they cloud our rationality, kills our compassion and throws us in the brink of inhumanity. It is time that being denizens of Mother Earth we should start looking at the real facts of diseases like HIV, leprosy and currently Covid-19 and stop outcasting people suffering from such diseases.
I would rate this read as 5 out of 5