Name: Cross roads
Editor: Ahmed Faiyaz
Publishers: Grey Oak in association with West Land
Price: Rs. 199
What
this book is about?
A collection of Indian short stories (30 urban stories
by 26 authors) edited by best-selling author Ahmed Faiyaz.
It is very difficult to write review for a short story
collection, because you cannot judge if book is good or not. If one story is
excellent and another story is not good, you cannot give an overall rating. So,
in this post I recommend some good stories in the book leaving behind the not
so good ones.
What
I liked?
My favorite is Rajasthan
summer by Ayesha Heble - It is a
simple ghost story with a twist at the end.
Everyone
has a story by Gayathri Hingorani – Minu bai, a maid
walks through us to different homes, different lives, different problems and
different stories from where she works. Rich or poor or liberated or neutral or
joint family everyone has their own share of problems.
Cross
Roads by Ahmed Faiyaz – Excellent story narration and un-predictable
climax. This is my next favorite pick form the book.
Plummet
by Avnee Rajesh & Pranav Mukul – A close up on a student’s life, his
perspective on everyone around him. Story is very realistic as we see many
parents in India who compare academics of their children to their neighborhood
kids without realizing the potential of their children in other fields like
sports, arts etc., This also shows how much pressure is put on those children which
sadly leads to suicidal tendency.
Baba
Premanand’s Yoga class by paritosh Uttam – One of a kind
humorous story and we can expect such an excellent story from Paritosh
obviously. Story shows how circumstances play with us some times and make
things out of control.
Look
how far we’ve come by Shreya Maheshwari – An emotional story
of a divorced couple with a child. It shows how couple copes up with things and
also shares a good bond with child. Dad meets his son every weekend and spends
time with him, while his son is taken care by mother Rhea. Kid is happy that he
can share their love without listening to their parents shouting at each other
daily. But, last 2 lines from dad say a lot
It
felt odd, realizing that it wasn’t so much that my eleven-year-old son needed
me, but that I needed him.
Mind
games by Manisha Dhingra – It’s a complex story of a person
with some mental illness because of which he is in a hallucination that he
married his college love even after breakup. We just feel pity of the
character.
Wrong
strokes for Deepalaya – A motivational story dedicated to many
soldiers who lose their lives to protect us and our country from invaders.
Jump
Didi
by Sharath Komarraju – It’s about a mysterious baby sitter with her own dark
secrets. It highlights the issue of child sexual abuse.
Pasta
lane
by Siddhartha Bhaskar and The Gap by
saritha rao are also worth a mention.
There are also some stories which are not good at all
and I felt boring to read. But, overall collection is good. When compared to
other short story collection ‘Urban shots – bright lights’ this collection is
not that great. My earlier review on Urban shots - brights lights can be found here.
Final
say:
A time pass read best for a train journey. Pick up the book from flipkart.com if you need some discount.
Until next time,
This post is written as part of book lovers book review program. http://thebookloversreview.blogspot.in/
Ramya you have a lot of patience to read yet another collection of short stories and post such a detailed n well written review as well!! :)
ReplyDeletethanks @lonely planet :) i will always have patience for books.
ReplyDeleteLovely review! I really like some of the stories you mentioned, too, especially Baba Premananda's Yoga Class and Every one has a story.
ReplyDeleteI love reading too and I hope we'd be able to share this love! :) If you want, you can check out my book blog and see if our interests match? :)
Thanks for dropping by and commenting Ashna.. surely will check your blog :)
ReplyDelete