Tag Archives: Fiction

Constrained by the chicken-pox and trying to deal with it during the summer holidays, Paromita and her fellow chicken-pox afflicted neighbouring teens—Sunidhi, Agastya, Darius, and Nihal—decide to solve the mystery that has scarred all of the denizens of The Orchard.

The story circles around a hidden sandalwood grove near the Sahyadri Range. The sandalwood trees are in the middle of a change of guard with the young Siah taking over from her mentor Bhuja when they come under the shadow of traffickers. To rescue her clan, Siah is willing to go to great lengths and even follow the forbidden paths. The story carries an element of speculative fiction at its core. Who set the fire that left Samr half burnt? What happened to the little girl who died mysteriously? Several parallel narratives seem to be unfolding simultaneously, making the plot pleasantly challenging and complex. All the threads converge in the climactic chapters and the ends are tied up neatly.

Nationalism, a recurring motif in the novel, is presented as both a unifying ideology and a vehicle for violence and marginalization. Through the lived experiences of his characters, Islam interrogates how nationalist discourses justify systemic exclusion, displacement, and cultural erasure. It also reflects how even such a unifying force could not cut across social boundaries like caste.

‘Strangers in the Park’ unveils the story of fifty-something Sudha, widowed for a decade, who befriends a stranger on her evening walks in the Lodhi Gardens, and much to the consternation of her large joint family—a mother-in-law, a daughter-in-law and sundry aunts of her late husband—decides to go for a holiday to Europe with this new-met friend! And no, he didn’t ask her to marry him.

Maya Nagari is a celebration of Mumbai’s vibrancy and resilience. The anthology captures the city’s unique ability to embrace and transform those who come to it. Each story is a testament to the indomitable spirit of Mumbai, a city that continues to thrive despite its challenges.

The LGBTQIA movement in Assam has taught people to think about gender and sexuality in a new way. It is through this movement that people within this spectrum have gained the courage to live fearless and dignified lives. Editor Banamallika gives people of all genders the opportunity to share all kinds of personal experiences (painful or hopeful).

Suryabala, just like her name, is described as both bright like the sun and with a childlike innocence that refuses to be controlled and corrupted by the social norms imposed on her by her family, misleading lovers, and exploitative men in power.

Further, set at the turn of the twentieth century, the novel also captures well the many questions and anxieties that haunt the middle-class consciousness of the country in the contemporary period of economic and social restructurings.

The novel uses the classic archetypal Gothic trope of an abandoned and deteriorating establishment inhabited by a paranormal entity. Of particular interest is Khan’s portrayal of Sana’s twin sister who is dead but continues to haunt the protagonist throughout the story. Further, Khan presents a poignantly eerie tale of Sana and her evil-spirited sister being born with conjoined hips and how the latter dies after the operation that attempts to separate the two. With efficacy, Khan renders Sana’s recalling of this moment as she lies unconscious on the operation table with her dead sister in the lines:

The Preface of the book informs us that 400 years ago, Tulsidas wrote this prayer in Awadhi, an older form of Hindi. It also provides a succinct summary of Rama’s life, linking it with the festival of Diwali. In the next pages it provides a line of Hindi/Awadhi and below it, a transliteration in English.

Bansal skilfully makes and un-makes a mesh of actions and their reactions. While Lipika’s intuitive sense of foreboding sets the mood very early in the novel with her intense dislike of Rahul: ‘How could she expect him (Kartik) to understand, when she herself knew not why she detested him?’ (p. 21), the novel comes alive with a host of other narrative devices such as images that emerge and turn metaphoric. For instance, Lipika’s virulent rashes. Kartik finds them so shocking that he consults Rahul.

The stories are dealt as allegories that offer didactic elements. They question the moral scruples that are encountered by most humans now and provide a resource to try to undo their negative impact by creating an interface of collaboration through empathy. Storytelling since aeons has had the transformative power of regeneration through this empathetic approach. Ganguly, too, by painting the various mise-en-scènes in a delicate manner, has harnessed the power of storytelling through sensitive acuity.

The Sufi’s Nightingale by Sarbpreet Singh is beyond the mere retelling of the blessed bond between Shah Hussain and Madho Lal. It is a journey into the nooks and nuances of a sublime relationship between the murshid-mureed, as the re-defining of loss, longing and love in 16th century Lahore.

There is an early warning shouted out by Bhaiya: ‘Biji’s in the kitchen!’ While this warning is duly registered by Mama and Papa, Papa’s eyes turning ‘big and round as plates’, it is the protagonist, the granddaughter, who knows just what this means.

Despite its elementary level, this book satisfies a fundamental need of us emotion-feeling humans—the thirst to comprehend ourselves and our inner experiences. Oh, So Emo!delivers on this need with its engaging narrative and practical tools for emotional awareness.

The title of the book is metaphorical and symbolic of the lost cultural harmony and its revival in a post-Partition milieu. Sheila,

The girl, Kalpana, spends three harrowing days and nights in a forest and is finally found lying near a road and brought back safe. But she has become silent and except for whispering a few words to her little sister much later in the story, she never utters a single sound.

For Indian readers, the contemporary ‘diaspora-novel’ (i.e., stories of individuals who migrate/move away from their homeland) has come a long way since 1991,

This novel was first published by Tranquebar in 2009 and has been republished in 2022 as a paperback by Speaking Tiger. Soumya Bhattacharya is an established journalist, and writer of well-regarded books on cricket

Hurda is a riveting read. Three young children—sisters, the eldest among them aged 14, are missing and subsequently found dead. They are survived by a poor family of three: