Urban shots - Cross roads [Book Review]

Book details:

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/

Urban shots - Bright lights - [Book review]

This time, i got a chance to read another short story collection edited by Paritosh Uttam titled 'Urban shots - Bright Lights'. 
Earlier, i read 'Wise and Otherwise' by Sudha murthy which is one of the best short story books that i read so far. You can find review here. 



Book details :
Name:  Urban Shots - Bright Lights
Price: Rs. 199/-
Publisher: GreyOak in association with Westland


It is a roller coaster ride of emotions when i go through this book as there are different stories with different story lines edited to  the perfection by Paritosh. Some stories make you feel the pain of characters, some are funny and light reads , some are emotional and we can relate to them easily, whereas some will make you think about the characters even after few days. There are also a few stories which are not that great. All stories are just 4 or 5 pages and so it is very easy to read. People who are not book lovers may also enjoy this book. 


Book starts with a story 'Amul'. Author 'Aravind chandrasekhar' takes you to the heart of an innocent child who is ill and how she perceives harsh realities around her life. It is interesting to read how she correlates maths principles to happenings in her life.
'Across the seas' is another heart touching story about a mother waiting eagerly for her son working in another country to come home and how happy she feels reading the letter from him. We can relate this to many people that we see around us, as author 'Ahmed Faiyaz' has written it in a very realistic way. Iam really impressed with the writing style of Ahmed after reading his other stories also like Mr Perierra, It's all good and Jet set Go!
'Maami menace' is very hilarious and a joyful read. 'Father of my Son' and 'Good morning Nikhil' doesn't have a story line exactly but every family can relate to those easily as they capture a simple happy family moments. My favourite story is 'The rain coat' by 'Rashmi Sahi'. Many parents try hard to get the best things for their children but children may not realize the value of small sacrifices made by their parents. In this story, 'Roma' could understand her mother's sacrifice at last. 
P.K Koshy's daily routine seems to be a unique story. It makes you involved in the character and make you think like a retired government employee and see his office and neighborhood through his eyes. It also shows how artificially an employer gives a send off to their employee after working with dedication for whole life when we read his reaction about the gift that he receives from his ex-colleagues.
The weeping girl is just awesome! climax is very funny indeed. 
I mentioned only a few stories that i liked out of 29 stories in this book.
My Rating : 3 out of 5 
Do read when you get time and let me know what you felt :)
Book is on a discount in flipkart.com. Try it if you are interested.


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Until next time,