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N. Kamala
BLUE AND OTHER STORIES by Suniti Namjoshi Tulika Publishers, 2013, 34 pp., 250
November 2013, volume 37, No 11

According to Elizabeth Cook, ‘myths are about gods, legends are about heroes, and fairy tales are about woodcutters and princesses.’1 In what category does the present book fall? There is a mention of a god, there are ‘heroes’ or rather ‘heroines’ as main protagonists of the stories, and while there may be no woodcutters, there is a princess! But if we continue with E. Cook, she does admit that there is much similarity in the above categories and broadly speaking, ‘they are not realistic, they are almost unlocalized in time and space; they are often supernatural or at least fantastic in character; and the human beings in them are not three-dimensional people with complex motives and temperaments’. The latter definition fits more comfortably the description of Blue and Other Stories, even if the people are more complex than the average character in such tales. So maybe the title Stories is sufficient to talk of Suniti Namjoshi’s book.

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