Down Memory Lane
Indu Liberhan
Down Memory Lane by Bhaskar Ghose Penguin, 2013, 265 pp., 299
July 2013, volume 37, No 7

Very captivating and entertaining, Teller of Tales goes down the memory lane of two friends in the civil service, the reserved secretive Arunava and the staid Tapan—a very close friendship at one level and full of doubts on the other. Adding to the mystery and charm of it all is a thread of romance. A beautifully crafted novel, it keeps the reader in suspense till the very end.

The author is a bureaucrat turned writer, actor and director of several plays. Threads of experience from all these divergent walks of life are beautifully interwoven in the fabric of this novel. The central character, and to a large extent, the central theme of the novel is the ‘story teller’ Arunava Varman. Arunava an IAS officer meets Tapan, another IAS officer, and they become good friends. The story progresses initially by way of anecdotes of their experiences with Arunava, of course, always wanting to top Tapan’s story with a more interesting one of his own. Arunava’s ‘tales’ are exceedingly well narrated.

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