Author: Shashi Deshpande
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2004-04-01
Language: English
Pages: 245
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0143031295
Description
This, the second volume of Deshpande's stories, once again spans three decades. Once asked, like all writers are, why she writes, she replied: " Not to change the world. I wish I could, but I know I can't. So, instead, I tell it as it is, rejecting all that has been said and written and told to me about people, specially about women who have always been spoken for, discarding images, stereotypes, re-questioning myths and starting afresh, crawling into the minds of people, painting their inner landscapes." This is how and why these stories were written.
Writing is, to me, a way of exploring the world, says best selling novelist and short-story writer Shashi Deshpande. In this, the second volume of her collected short fiction, we travel with her into a world of characters and situations that are identifiable, and experience emotions that are at once complex and cathartic. Intensely felt and beautifully rendered, these are stories that will stay with you a long, long time.
REVIEWS
Shashi picks up stereotypical characters like the self-effacing mother, the adulterous wife, the loving daughter and brings in many variations to their personalities, so that the very cast of the stereotype is wrecked to pieces.
-First City
Shashi Deshpande is one of those few mesmerizing writers who draw you into themselves quietly but firmly. She ensures that you can never walk away from her stories, having once picked up her book. Since the stories are anecdotal in nature, they usually take place over a day or so, even in the space of a few hours, but more interesting is the fact that they address seminal issues, that shape lives.
-HindustanTimes.com
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Retrospective
The Last Enemy
Lucid Moments
The Pawn
Travel Plans
The Dim Corridor
Death of a Child
Lost Springs
Hear me, Sanjaya
Madhu
Memorabilia
The Window
It Was Dark
The Day of the Golden Deer
I Want
Ghosts
The Story
And Then?
A Day Like Any Other
The Miracle
A Man and a Woman
The Cruelty Game
Rain
And What Has Been Decided?