Pointless and Trivial
Anita Desai
BEYOND LOVE AND OTHER STORIES by Shiv K. Kumar Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1980, 127 pp., 45.00
Sept-Oct 1980, volume 5, No 9/10

Shiv K. Kumar made his name in the Indian literary world as a poet. He is also a highly successful member of academe as can be seen from the impres­sive string of appointments listed in the biographical note on the back jacket of his collection of short stories. From a professor with such a distinguished career and a poet who has won respect for his clear and distinct voice, one expects to find a certain literary standards upheld even when he turns his hand to prose and to fiction. On reading these nineteen brief stories, however, one is not merely disappointed but appalled at the plummeting of all literary standards. In story after story Professor Kumar betrays his intention to titillate rather than stimulate or engage his readers. They deal with sex and marital relation­ships in a way that is not explicit so much as bedizened with tinsel and sequins borrowed from the Bombay cinema. Their titles give them away by their vulgarity and coy plagiarism: One, entitled ‘To Nun, With Love’ (connota­tions of To Sir with Love?

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