In this world of neon lights and city stench, opaque opulence and pretentious opera, diseased bodies and bleeding hearts, advertised godliness and regimented terrorism, under all the facade of civilising processes, are we not nomads? Do we not represent the existence of nomads placed in an urban setting? Chronicle- is not this word a good summary of our incidental existence? The collection of short stories titled ‘Chronicles of Urban Nomads’ can be read as a response to these ideas.
The collection contains nineteen short stories, divided into two sections IMAGINE and MUSINGS, having nine and ten short stories, respectively. The first part titled IMAGINE is apt. Imagine if abstract things could talk, could have a mind, a heart and a narrative .That is exactly what you will find in the first nine short stories under the heading IMAGINE. The first short story comes across as a stream of consciousness narrative of a Banaras sari and evolves into an emotional story of union. ‘The Blue Slippers’ by Kirthi Jayakumar stands out as a very contemporary story of the perils of war born out of fundamentalism and regimented thought. Kirthi has masterfully blended two narrative styles in this short story- the omniscient narrative and the first person narrative of a camera. Having read it in the wake of the recent Peshawar attack, this short story appeared to me not only contextual but as a powerful literary response. ‘The Wait’ by Ashay Abbhi is arguably the best short story from the first part. The most interesting aspect of this short story is the fact that death is the narrator of the story. Rounak Nayak’s ‘Masterpiece’ touches your heart and if you have ever fallen in love (which I suppose everybody has) you will love this story and connect with it. Having a very epistolary feel, the story tells the tale of a young man’s pursuit of creating a masterpiece paralleled with his love story and at the end………to find out please buys the book. The second last short story brings in fear as the narrator as the title suggests. The last short story in this section deals with an ordinary, unobtrusive man’s attempt to do something extraordinary.
The second section titled MUSINGS contains ten short stories. The short stories in this section are more mature in their content and style. This section opens with Dipankar Mukherjee’s ‘The Last Letter’, a heart-rending story about the separation of a ten year old daughter from her father due to the little girl’s terminal illness and her demise on the day of her tenth birthday. The story makes the heart heavy with pain and the reader feels the utter pain and helplessness of the father in front of the towering disease. The narrative moves through shifts of time that makes the story very engrossing. The short stories that stand out in this section are Pradeep Moitra’s ‘The Face on the Canvas’ and Roopa Raveendran Menon’s ‘Finding Mia’.The former is a mysterious story about an old man’s painting and the protagonist, Sucheta. The twist resides in the title of the short story and is a must read. It has almost a psychological layer to it. The latter is a story of unredeemable guilt that the protagonist suffers and her ultimate emancipation from it. The conscious and the subconscious play a very important role in the story’s narrative.
Overall, Readomania’s ‘Chronicles of Urban Nomads’ is a good read and often an enriching one. The collection takes us not only into the multiple crevices of human relationships and human mind, but also reveals to us the painful existence and the burden of metropolitan existence.
Book Details:
| Publisher: | Readomania | Year of Publication: | 2014 |
| ISBN-13: | 9788192997506 | ISBN-10: | 8192997502 |
| Cover: | Paperback | No of Pages: | 176 |
| MRP: | Rs. 225 | Buy From: | Flipkart.com Amazon.in |
Readomania’s ‘Chronicles of Urban Nomads’ is a good read and often an enriching one. My Rating
4
