I’m so glad
that short stories as a concept is being revived again, and in a serious way. I
have always found short stories very intriguing & even more creative than a
full length novel. Bound by expressing all emotions a novel does, in just a few
pages, short stories have to reach within the reader much faster with all the
emotions the story is trying to convey & still derive the same impact that
a full length novel does.
It is in short
stories where I discovered the sheer genius of legends like O.Henry, Guy De
Maupassant, Jaishankar Prasad, Yashpal and many others. Over the years the art
of short stories got somewhat reduced in stature & relegated to the
background. I’m happy, the genre is seeing a revival yet again…and I hope it
continues.
I received
Time’s Lost Atlas from the publication house Half Baked Beans, and the summary
script at the back of the book intrigued me. 11 stories of 11 different authors
delving into the 11 most prominent & notorious events of the last 10
decades; which means 11 stories, each of them handling one of the most
sensitive events that shook the World; events like major bombing, major riots,
major natural calamities, conspiracy theories, etc etc.
I thought to
myself, that it would be extremely tough bringing out the emotions of pathos,
fear, tragedy, romance, mystery together in short stories. This seemed like one
big challenge.
Time’s Lost
Atlas did not disappoint at all on this front.
The very
first story – Beneath by Budhaditya
Bhattacharjee was so thrilling & mysterious. Right from the beginning,
it had me gripped. I could not understand what was happening to the protagonist
of the story and I wanted to read on to find the end. It was truly a page-turner
and very dark & mysterious….and very beautifully it just leaves you at the
perfect climax point. Not revealing too much, yet revealing some information,
leaving the rest for the reader to decipher!!
The Motown Conspiracy by Sakshi
Srivastava – What a risqué
story!! How honest, blatant, bold & thrilling. If you are reading this Sakshi,
then please know, that your story drove me to google more on the topic after I read
it. Very well written.
The One & Only Purpose by
Geeta Madhuri– Interesting take on a major event. Quite liked the
imagination here…and I can
go on & on….each story was interesting in their own plot. I would at times
marvel as to how well the respective authors of their stories have merged
emotions like romance & love amidst tough background of conspiracy &
war, in just a few pages. Notable in this direction were The Rising by Malvika Roy Singh & A Symphony of Concurrences by Vishal Bagaria....the former such a
heart touching story (it reminded me a little bit of The Kite Runner by Khaled
Hosseini) and the latter was so mysterious yet believable; this was one story
that was subtle in all emotions right from the beginning & yet left so much
impact – feelings of infatuation, love, faith, deceit all woven in one story so
very subtly & still leaves a mark on you.
In the
department of love, deceit & conspiracy, The Filch by Namrata was very well written too. I was not expecting
the end of the story as written. It was in fact quite impactful and can leave a
reader thinking.
United We Fall by Anurag Anand covered one of the biggest space
tragedies of the last decade. The author painted scene by scene, character by
character of what exactly would be going inside a space shuttle that knows it
is approaching an end!! Very well written.
But the story that just shook me up
were two of the whole collection:
Pangs of Pain by Shruti Jain – Wow!!! The best of the whole
collection in my opinion. I wish I could be with Tamanna in more pages. Hats
off to the author. What a heart wrenching story. How she expressed absolutely
complex emotions of love, feeling of loss, pathos, fear, the ugliness of
society in just a few chapters simply wowed me. Her story actually transported
me to the scene of the plot. Beautifully written.
Innocents at War by Adwitiya Borah – Heart touching take on one of the
biggest riots that shook our country in last decade. What I liked was that Borah
brought out the pathos of riot boldly & blatantly, without trying to soften
any aspect. Yes, riots are much worse, but what she expressed in just a few
pages was very heart touching.
The last of
the collection, The Victims, by Vishnu
Vardhana, was a good story. As the name suggests it deals with victims of
various incidents, some that shook the World, and some that are too personal,
but all of whom have had a soul charring effect on its “victims”. Instead of
dealing with situations directly, it deals with them via their survivors and
their post trauma therapy. The concept was very intriguing and was structured
well too. However, to be very honest, I was just slightly let down in this
story due to grammatical errors, and there were quite a few. Now call me old
school, but I have grown up considering books & newspapers to be my
reference point to correct my grammar & vocabulary. It then seems a bit
jarring when a good story is plagued with grammatical errors. Having said that,
this was the only flaw in the story; otherwise its structure, thought, plot all
were very good.
Brilliant
job done by Harsh Agarwal to not
only compile these stories, but also give them a correct order where each story
builds up the momentum into the other.
Kudos to the
publisher Half Baked Beans for
encouraging short story formats in this way, and one that touches sensitive and
risqué topics, & yet emerges a winner!!
A Must Read.
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