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In this anthology of short stories, Neeru Nanda depicts in her characteristically interesting style the stories of people one comes across in everyday life. Written in a simple style, the stories are extremely readable and show her amazing diversity of theme. These excite our emotions of pity, sadness and sympathy and are spun around love, childhood, rural and urban life. Nearly all the characters in these stories are shown agonisingly grappling with personal emotions, problems and circumstances. For some of them, the world is too small, and crowded living suffocates them, while others find it very large and struggle to etch out an identity. Some show courage and bravely face reality and others vanish in the pitch dark and howling night. New insights of deep feeling are provided of a world beyond our everyday world. Strangely, men and women and children who people these stories are not acquainted with the small thrills of everyday living. They have no time or inclination or awareness to savour the wonders of the earth and the sky. Having never experienced the safe haven of a home, they are unaware of security or warmth that a family, friends and kinship can give. Thus, interpersonal relationships are non-existent. Their barren, emotionless space is a tight, exacting place where they have no quiet corner to themselves to sing and dance, to learn, to create and to achieve. Sunita in the story, Mentoring Sunita, grows up on the streets and is obliged to beg for a living. Many mentors, who sensitively analyse her predicament, sympathise with her in her dire distress but cannot or do not resolve the problems that dog her. The issues confronting her are so contentious that the mentors, one by one, abandon her to her fate with, ...what else could they do...?" For Radha, her husband "sparked her life with happiness and worship". But when the floods wash him away, events drive her to a life of ignominy in Bombay. She seeks refuge with the villainous Hero. When this rogue rapes her 13-year-old daughter Paru, pain hits the pit of her stomach. Her daughter gives birth to a baby girl, Muniya. Hero lays claim to his "daughter" and threatens to put her on "Salma’s kotha", for she would be "his pension" and "his money spinner". Paru cannot control the frenetic raging of her heart—she kills Hero. Radha, Paru and Muniya melt into the anonymity of the Bombay streets, and the story Sanskriti comes to an end. The Sarvaguru tells us how Guru Dineshwar evolves into a complete and true sarvaguru by renouncing all material possessions in the true sense. The Peak is about a farmer, Ramsingh, whose fields give meaning to his life. These symbolise his past, present and future, his family tree, his heritage, which he desperately wants to hand over to his son, but destiny propels him to the crossroads of a dilemma. Our society places a high
premium on fertility, and barrenness is a frightening curse for women.
In The Surrogate Father, the mother-in-law does all she
can to push Shobha into a bleak world of traditional oppression.
However, Shobha refuses to sacrifice her self-respect or allow others to
undermine her confidence or subordinate her rights. This story has a
little twist. |
THE
word "IF" is pregnant with meaning. It is full of terrifying
implications and predicaments, encompassing sober facts and frightening
fantasies.