Memoirs of a Guisha, a book of many shades

 My recent tryst with a Japanese based novel proved worth reading. And solved many of my doubts regarding Guisha system. The entertaining women of Japan society has many shades but all those were unique in nature. They can't be said as outright prostitutes. But they have their own freedom in choosing customers. You would ask me what the novel is here I am going to talk about. The title of the novel is "Memoirs of a Guisha. And it's author is Arthur Golden. I picked it up without expecting anything. But it has become one of the finest novels I have ever read.  Let's explore the story in nutshell.

Sayori and Satsu are village girls, born in a fisherman family. In fact, Sayori, this name has given her in Guisha home. Their family was so poor to give the best medicine to the bed ridden mother. Father was also hopeless with his meagre income and he's also suffering from old age problems. This was the second marriage for him after the death of first wife. Watching all this situation, a local business man Tanaka Ichiro sent the two kids to the guisha home in Kyoto. Satsu, the older girl was sent to a prostitute home since she has no finer qualities to become a guisha.

Sayori remained at the Guisha home. She was very beautiful with charming eyes and good manners. The head of the Guisha home, sent Sayori to the school where the lessons for the future guisha were taught. their syllabus included instrumental music, Japanese poetry, acting skills and of course do's and don'ts of a guisha. They also keep participating in theater shows. Their daily routine no way less than a disciplined student in any good school. Mostly taught fine arts sort of education by experienced Guisha. Experienced Guishas play very important role in grooming the budding ones. Here Our Sayori was only 9 years old. She was assigned household work like sweeping and going to bazar to get needed commodities.

As she approached sixteen years of age, Guisha home head prepared the process to enhance Sayori into Guishahood. How that process be like and what kind of things a young Guisha was to go through, all these are very interesting. One must read in the novel only. Naturally, in every business, there are rivals to overcome and it's not exceptional. How she surpassed all these and became successful is something key point in this novel. It sets in the backdrop of second world war, so naturally described how war did havoc in Japan.

--- Murthy Kvvs