Dinesh Singh’s 101 Twisted Tales is unlike the usual collections of short stories, standing out particularly for its brevity. Each tale of a mere four to five lines packs in emotions and insights that are otherwise hard to render in so concise a format and narrative structure. These are stories from a seasoned and perceptive mathematician engaged in an indulgent interrogation, reflection and negotiation with the contradictions of life lived and the surprises it offers. The twist in the tales is an invitation to ponder and reflect on similar situations that one may have encountered. The short stories in the book are about love, lust, death, accidents, blessings, luck, prophecies and prayers. They are about the quirks of fate of not only the eponymous and the famous but also about the extraordinary twists and turns in the lives of ordinary folk. The tales depict the uncertainties of life, its beauty, frailties, vagaries and cruelties on the one hand, and on the other, they celebrate the immense ability of human beings to endure and make meaning, enabling them to continue their journey.
The adjectives that directly apply to this rendering are many: short, succinct, sublime, anecdotal, autobiographical, instructive and insightful. Akin to the genre of parables or aphorisms, these tales is infectious and are superbly amenable to recounting with a change of characters and contexts. Such renderings come from a deep commitment to teaching and dialogue, where one ploys and plots to hammer abstractions that otherwise are difficult to put across. The surprising element of these tales are not the twists but their historicity. Several characters in these tales are known mortal historical beings.
101 is auspicious perhaps to ward off the readers’ profane thoughts and to invoke the humane sublimity in them. If brevity is the soul of wit, then these are not just brief tell tales but are close to Sufistic and Biblical aphorisms. Some of the tales have a philosophical and ethical slant while some are able to depict and reflect upon the socio-economic processes as well. For instance, the story titled ‘Sage’ (p. 60) captures the early NRI syndrome of being the arch pontiff, in other words, the sage who is never deterred from proffering advice on all and sundry matters. In contrast, some of the stories have a Dushyant and Shakuntala touch while some have a Tenali-Raman and Mulla Nasiruddin touch. There are stories that pay rich tribute to Akbar and his sagacity. Among various historical personages, Gandhi visibly is the author’s favourite. The Mahatma is invoked several times, both in solo and in intimate engagement with other historical figures, including Kasturba and Sarla Debi. The book as a whole is not an engagement in abstraction but with great sardonic humour reveals glimpses of the contradictions of India’s underbelly. This is best illustrated by the story ‘Grit’ which depicts the human crisis sparked off by the COVID-induced lockdown in 2020.
The background sketches on every page enhance and deepen the pathos of these tales. They amplify the polyvocal messages and induce and invite the reader to ponder and reflect. These extraordinarily brief tales are both cathartic and liberating, almost akin to high potency homoeopathic doses. Each page is aesthetically done.
This book must also be published as a pocket book. It can serve as an ideal gift to all thinking beings as it provides context for conversations that enrich and expand human experience. The man behind this reflective creation is a conversationalist par excellence. I vividly recall the great conversations with him about Debraha Baba and also about Shri Satya Sai mediated by ruminations on the academic and non-academic fiats of his seniors and colleagues. The fact that such tales can be incubated and rendered speaks of the author’s ability to enjoy and risk the road less travelled.
Dhrub Kumar Singh is with the Department of History, Faculty of Social Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.