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The more time the author spent in practice, the more he realised that the driving force behind the industry is not altruism, but greed. He uses personal experience as a doctor, interviews and conversations with colleagues and patients around the country to highlight the grotesqueness of the system. He cites case studies to show how the system is driven by money; how shoddy research goes unquestioned; government hospitals are overburdened; and private healthcare is unaffordable. The idea is to shake readers out of complacency and give out a clarion call for reform and change. The author says that through the book, he wants to equip readers to be able to ask the difficult questions that will ensure better healthcare for all.

Bengali writer Mashiul Alam’s stories hold up a mirror to Bangladeshi society. He effortlessly crosses over into the surreal, serving as an escape from the blatant, daily horrors of reality. The stories turn the reader into a spectator witnessing heightened versions of plausible macabre events. Some stories disrupt our complacency while others are immensely tender — but all of them are intensely political and rendered in sharp, precise prose. The stories have been translated by Shabnam Nadiya, Bangladeshi writer and translator, whose translation of Alam’s story ‘Doodh’ (Milk) won the 2019 Himal Southasian Short Story Prize and is a part of this collection. The author has over 20 books of fiction to his credit.

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