Tag Archives: short story

A Short Story Published: ‘Just Like Hutton’

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“Simla, newly-washed by the afternoon rain, sparkled in the sun. As they made their way through Lakkar Bazaar, Kishore and Bhaskar saw shopkeepers wiping down shop fronts and lugging out wares that had been pulled inside when the storm burst.

‘Ma will be furious,’ Bhaskar said as they passed an old Bhutia, hunched under a load of skins as smelly and weathered as him. ‘We’ve never been this late before.’

‘It’s never rained so hard before. Chaachi knows we can’t play cricket in the rain.'”
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A story published in Open Road Review

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Open Road Review (ORR) is a brand new literary magazine in India. They’ll be publishing an online issue every three months, in three categories: short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. For the first issue of ORR, its editor, Kulpreet Yadav, invited me to contribute. One look at the guidelines (“literary work that is elegant and subtle… takes the reader to a deeper level”), and I knew Muzaffar Jang, much as I love him, wouldn’t do. What was needed here was something in a very different style.

So here is what I submitted. It’s a story called Maplewood, set in a fictitious colonial bungalow (named Maplewood), where an old widow, transplanted into the middle of the sleepy backwaters of the country, passes her days. It’s a story that came deep from within my heart – not because I myself have felt what the narrator of Maplewood must feel, but I can imagine it. And I can imagine what my reaction would be if I were to find myself in her place.

Do read, and let me know what you think.

 

Short Story in the Brunch Quarterly

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Although I have been busy (winding up the writing of the second Muzaffar Jang novel, finalising the cover and final text of the first set of Muzaffar Jang stories, and beginning work on the second set of Muzaffar Jang – as you can see, Muzaffar Jang more or less rules my life), I have also been doing other writing. An example of this has just been published, in the Hindustan Times Brunch Quarterly, July-September 2011 issue.

Though most people know me as the creator of Muzaffar Jang, the Mughal detective, here I’ve ventured into territory I’ve never traversed before. The editor at the Brunch Quarterly said, “Could you please write another historical detective story for us?”, but since the word limit was 3,000 – a little difficult to fit detection into, at least for me – I decided to make this a somewhat different story. No sleuthing. No Mughal India. But, yes; it’s still not contemporary – it’s set in the Calcutta of the very late 19th century, and it involves, if not a crime, at least something not very nice.

An excerpt from the story, which is named Mangoes and Indigo:

Oscar Leadbetter, after two months on board ship, followed by a cross-country journey from Bombay to Calcutta, was ushered into his cousin’s presence by a turbaned servant. The man, his white muslin jama swishing about pyjama-clad knees, bowed out. Oscar stood before the vast mango-wood desk behind which his cousin sat. Stephen’s drooping moustache and thinning hair were blond, his icy blue eyes the gift of some long-ago Nordic ancestor. He turned that frosty gaze on Oscar.

‘I have had to get rid of my last secretary to accommodate you,’ he said. There had been no invitation for Oscar to sit, no ‘Koi hai?!’ yelled to a servant for whisky.

Oscar murmured something about trying his best, and was treated to a cold stare before Stephen began listing his duties. They were many, and varied. Oscar would receive and segregate correspondence.  He would write suitable responses. He would keep the accounts for the house. He would be in charge of making large purchases – not the meat and vegetables, or the dhobi’s lye, but the substantial ones. Furniture, for instance, or mattresses.

‘Do you expect them to wear out every few months?’ Oscar asked.

Note: Although you can read Hindustan Times online, Brunch Quarterly is in the form of a magazine, available at most large newsstands. Pick up a copy and read for yourself!

 

A Short Story Published

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There was a young man down in the street, labouring away at the kebab stall. From two storeys up, I couldn’t see his face; just his back and arms as he went about his work. He had kneaded the keema and I had watched his shoulders moving, wide and muscular, as he worked the meat. His muslin kurta stretched across a broad back as he chopped onions and mint, pounded masalas, reached out to pour oil into the heavy iron kadhai, and pumped the kerosene stove, arms moving rhythmically back and forth, back and forth.

I drew back, breathing deeply of kebabs and kerosene, roses and sweat. A glorious bit of maleness there. Glorious from a distance of twenty feet, in the gathering gloom of a Ramzan twilight. At close quarters, the attraction would probably fade into nothingness. He probably sniveled. Or had a harelip. Or wasn’t interested in girls anyway.

I opened my eyes and looked up at the clock above my bed. It had once been Ammi’s clock, Ammi’s room. I remembered her standing there, just as I was now, waiting for seven o’clock. Always seven. ‘Ameena, don’t step out of this room when they come. Do you hear me?’ Her voice cracking with stress, her eyes grey like mine, scared and bitter.

Yes, Ammi. I hear you.

I hadn’t gone out of the room; they’d come in when Ammi died. But they rarely came in now, because there was no need. Well trained, that’s what I am, like one of those dancing monkeys I had once seen. The monkey-man, his face pinched and hungry, would jerk the string, flinging it up, and the monkey, perfectly trained, would pirouette in unison…

Those are the opening sentences of my latest short story to be published. One Night’s Work is, as the title suggests, about a night’s work—in a setting both modern and historical: the heart of contemporary Shahjahanabad, the busy, sometimes-sleazy, sometimes-charming (often both at the same time) area that most Dilliwallahs refer to as ‘Old Delhi’. Here, while the faithful get ready for an iftaar during Ramzan, as the markets bustle and heave with excitement, an orphaned girl, trapped in a job she hates, is escorted out on yet another assignment.

One Night’s Work has been published by Rupa Publications as part of an anthology titled Why We Don’t Talk. Compiled and edited by Shinie Antony, this is a collection of short stories set in contemporary urban India; stories by writers such as Anjum Hasan, Amit Varma, Jahnavi Barua, Rajorshi Chakraborty and Chetan Bhagat, among others. The book was released in Delhi in August, and costs Rs 295. You can ask for it in major bookstores, or buy it online at the Rupa website and at Rediff Shopping (yes, Rediff have got the details mixed up a bit, but the book’s the right one).

Update, two days later: The Times of India has published a brief review of Why We Don’t Talk: A ‘short and sweet’ collection of 27 stories, some by well-known Indian writers. This volume is like a breath of fresh air – poignant, serious, funny, bitter-sweet and quirky. Amit Varma’s ‘Urban Planning’ is a hilarious account of how politicians, media and the police are foxed by the mysterious movement of landmark buildings in Mumbai. Anita Nair’s ‘Trespass’ tells the story of a chance meeting between two women, one of whom is the mistress of the other’s husband. Samhita Arni’s ‘My Great-Grandaunt’ is one of the best of the lot. A great collection with a brilliant mix of stories.

A ‘short and sweet’ collection of 27 stories, some by well-known Indian writers. This volume is like a breath of fresh air – poignant, serious, funny, bitter-sweet and quirky. Amit Varma’s ‘Urban Planning’ is a hilarious account of how politicians, media and the police are foxed by the mysterious movement of landmark buildings in Mumbai. Anita Nair’s ‘Trespass’ tells the story of a chance meeting between two women, one of whom is the mistress of the other’s husband. Samhita Arni’s ‘My Great-Grandaunt’ is one of the best of the lot. A great collection with a brilliant mix of stories.