Tag Archives: Fiction

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:

Wars are terrible tragedies. Especially like in Vietnam where it was pointless, just ‘a senseless blunder’. The dramatic flexing of the American muscles to prevent the ‘domino theory’, that if one nation turned Communist, it would likely influence other nations to the same end, is a misguided thought, although strongly backed by American presidents. It is a reflection of their exaggerated national fears and geopolitical strategies.

Arunava Sinha’s The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told is an ocean resounding narrative themes and linguistic expressions that spread across centuries.

Living in Air, a collection of seventeen stories by Ipshita Chanda, opens with the story ‘Wings’, an ode to the 18th century Urdu poet Mah Laqa Bai Chanda from Hyderabad

The appeal of the novel lies in its conception as a microcosm where at the intrinsic level is a noticeable absence of an omnipotent author dictating mandates of life for his characters.

The plot revolves around Revathi’s marriage to Ravi, an auto driver living in a slum that houses erstwhile refugees from Burma who settled down in Tamil Nadu.

he novel begins in media res with Maggie’s meditations on the recent separation from Jon, her partner who moved out of their shared one-bedroom apartment in the city along with their pet cat.

Author and journalist Swati Sengupta from Kolkata has breathed life into every line of her meticulous research (whose sources are duly mentioned). Illustrator Sridatri Tagore has livened it up by the intelligent spacing of her illustration,