Book Review | Fables from India – A Collection of Short Stories by Uday Mane

The blurb says:

A King's negligence costs the Prince his eyes. How will the King make amends?

 A farmer is torn between resurrecting his wife and upholding his duties. What will infuence his choice? 

A jester lives two lives - Masked for others. Unmasked for himself. His masked side brings happiness to everyone. But what brings happiness to his unmasked side? 

A magnificent tree bears fruits of different kinds, but the King wants it to be cut down to serve justice. How will the tree defend itself? 

An orphan boy is in search of the world's bestselling book. Will he eventually find it? 

A dog struggles to uncurl his tail. Will he break the curse that curled his tail in the first place? 

A young boy and his pet lamb are separated from each other. Will their friendship stand the test of 
time? 

Set in the ancient times, Fables from India, is a collection of 22 profound and unheard stories from a country known for its storytelling.

I received this book from Leadstart Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Reading Fables from India by Uday Mane felt like I was reading some folk tales – simple, short, easy to understand and with a moral message. To give you an idea – the stories in this book are like those in Panchatantra.

Do you know what exactly are fables?

Wikipedia says --

Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized (given human qualities, such as the ability to speak human language) and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a pithy maxim.

This is the kind of book I would like to keep aside for my son to read when he grows up and takes to reading. Having said that, I must add that if you are into reading serious and complex short stories this book might not appeal to you. The stories are way too simple and straightforward for adding some depth to the characters or for adding some unexpected twists and turns to mundane plots. But, if you are like me - who read slow and ponder over what you have read, you may well revisit your moral science lessons and see how well you are applying them in your life now.

The book can do well if it is targeted to young readers between the ages of 8-12 years. Adults may read out these stories to their kids for some moral lessons.

There are 22 fables in the book are about kings, queens, common people, animals, life, death, and magic. Some of the ones I liked reading includes – "The Farmer and the Magic Objects" in which a husband seeks to resurrect his dead wife, "The Sacred Tree of Khamur" in which a tree speaks to appeal to a king to change his verdict, "A Night for the Demon" where a queen leaves her husband every fifteen days to spend a night in the jungle, "At Heaven’s Gate" where a child asks God why he took away his father from him. There were some more stories with profound messages and were a pleasure to read, but there were a couple of them which I couldn’t appreciate much - like The Jungle laws and Langu’s Calling.

One thing that didn’t work for me after reading this book was the title of the book. When I saw the title – Fables from India, I was really hoping for some profound stories from the land known for its story telling. But, I was a bit disappointed there. More than half of the stories didn’t seem to have any connection with India, or even ancient India as a matter of fact. Some seemed to be from Persia or Middle East, while some felt to be universal. So, I think the book could have been better named.

Overall, a light read that you can read or read out to your kid as bedtime stories.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahari

It has been a while since I read this book, but somehow I was not able to bring myself to write about it.  Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri is a collection of 9 short stories each distictly different from each other yet they collective serve as a mirror that shows various shades of our society. These stories are about Indian people in India or about Indians who have immigrated to United States. Some stories deal with personal lives of people, a few touches some social and poltical issues while others dwells on how Indian immigrants adjusts to the life in a foreign land.

Very often short stories fail to hold my attention for long, or they don't intrigue as much as I would like them to, but that is not the case with this book. Each and every story kept me absorbed, some made me sad, some made me wonder but each touched me in profound way. The book started with the story - A Temporary Matter, a poignant tale of a failing and disintegrating realtionship. Taking advantage of a temporary electrical outage, the couple shared their most intimate secrets in the shelter of darkness. As their story unfolded you couldn't help but empathize with the characters and shed a tear or two at their predicament.

The next story, 'When Mr Pirzada came to dine' brought to the horrors and aftermaths of war through the perspective of a young girl. The title story of the novel, Interpretar of Maladies dwells upon the power of interpretation. Lahiri has the ability to spin a yarn out of the seemingly most ordinary things. One can't help but marvel at her deep observation. Real Durwan, Sexy, Mrs Sen, Treatment of Bibi Haldar, The Blessed House each have a different story to tell. Each of them is thoughtful and intense in their own way. It was make you sit back and ponder of it. They are mostly sad, yet they have a charisma of their own.

The book ends with a relatively positive story, The Third and The Final Continent, where the protagonist takes the changes in good strides and slowly adapts with the life in America. These short stories are not so much about the plot, but about the characters, their lifes, aspirations and dreams.

I will end this post with a quote that I find very profound, it reflects the author's ability to make ordinary things seem extra ordinary

"Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."

Lingering Tide and other stories by Latha Vishwanathan

Lingering Tide and other stories by Latha Vishwanathan is a collection of 12 poignant short stories. I am not a big fan of short stories. In fact, I can count on my fingers the number of short story books I have read. The good thing about short stories is that they are short and at times you want to read something short, they come in handy. For that fact, I read short stories real slow, one story at a time.

What the blurb says about the book:

"Fiction. These poignant short stories depict the lives of immigrants through the theme of family adjustments, loss, setting afresh in a new place. Set in suburban Toronto, New Jersey, Texas and India, they draw out the conflicts in three generations of Indians whose lives interconnect even as they straddle the old and the new. What we sense is both the anguish of loss and the thrill of discovery. Viswanathan's quiet prose imparts powerful emotions that ring true and her rendering of cultural clash is truly skilful and nuanced. The depiction of her characters’ interior lives is so full and vital that they breathe and walk off the page. The reader is drawn in and completely absorbed into her world of transitions."

All the stories in the collection have a mystic element to it. They have a lingering feeling, a thoughtfulness and sometimes even a sense of incompleteness. After I read one, I just kept thinking about it. I didn't like all of them or may be I should say, I couldn't connect with all of them. My eyes moistened as I read 'Brittle'. It is a tragic, heart wrenching story that will leave a lump in your throat. I liked Attar, Eclipse and A Couple of Rouges among others. All of them had a different story to tell and the characters were well etched and vivid. I found 'Cool Wedding' sort of funny. It is in the form of a letter which a lady living in the US writes to her friend ranting about her life in the foreign land. It was interesting to see things from the point of the protagonist.

 I found the last 3 stories least appealing. What I find difficult understanding is why the author tries to portray characters who have left their homeland to settle in foreign shore in gloom and doom. Why there is always a feeling of wrong doing on their part?
Some of these stories will put you in self contemplation mode, some you might just forget. I give it a balanced 3/5.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Latha Viswanathan has worked as a journalist, copywriter, editor and teacher in India, London, Manila, Montreal, Toronto and the United States. These stories have appeared in major American literary magazines and won awards. Her work received a grant from the Texas Commission of the Arts in Fiction, was published in Best New Stories from the South and broadcast on National Public Radio. She currently lives and writes in Houston.

I received a free eBook from TSAR publishers for review.

Linking it to the South Asian Challenge

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Touchy Subjects by Emma Donoghue

Touchy Subjects by Emma Donoghue is a collection of 19 short stories on matters than can be rightly labelled 'touchy'.

Quoted from the blurb:

"A man finds God and finally wants a child- only his wife is now forty three years old. A coach's son discovers his sexuality on the football field. A room mate bizarre secret liberates a repressed young woman. From the unforeseen consequences of a polite social lie to the turmoil caused by a single hair on a woman chin, Donoghue dramatizes the seemingly small acts upon which our life often turn. Many of the stories involves animals and what they mean to us or babies and whether to have them; some replay Biblical plots in modern contexts. With characters old, young, straight, gay and simply confused, Donoghue dazzles with her range and her ability to touch lightly but delve deeply into human condition."

The blurb says all about the topics of the nineteen short stories this book offers. I can't really say I loved the book as I had said about Room by the author. There were some stories that kept me glued and some that I couldn't even connect a bit and even thought to skip parts. The book is divided in to five sections named - Babies, Domesticity, Strangers, Desire and Death. The stories from 'Death' are the ones I least liked, may be because of the subject matter itself. The stories on 'Babies' and 'Domesticity' were the ones I enjoyed most. They were subtle, absorbing and had a humorous touch to it.

 If I had to rate it only on the stories  I loved, I would give it a 4/5 but overall it would manage a balanced 2.5/5.

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Arranged Marriage by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

After reading The Palace of Illusions last year, I was looking forward to read more of the the author's work. That is why when I spotted this book in the library I picked it up. The Book - Arranged Marriage is a collection of short stories centering around Indian women. In most of the stories the protagonist is a woman with Indian roots, settled in America and the story is about her tumultuous journey of life where she is trying to strike a balance between her deep rooted Indian beliefs and modern American outlook.

The book has a collection of 10 stories, each of the story is different from the other and yet has something in common. Most of them are sad, some disturbing yet profound. These are stories which will leave an indelible mark in your mind and will leave you pondering. I have only one qualm about the book, as to why the author has stressed more on the negatives of Arranged Marriages. Arranged Marriage is a practice prevalent hugely in India. It is often labeled as an orthodox practice and mostly people from the West find it very difficult to understand, as how such a system could work in first place! But, it HAS worked and I have seen living examples of it. So, I do not think it is fair to explore only the grim side of Arranged Marriages.

The author through her stories stresses on the importance of independence in life, of women in particular which I believe is important for every women irrespective of nationality. Even though it is written in Indian context, it stresses on problems which is common to women from all walks of life and so, I think 'Arranged Marriage' doesn't seem to be a very appropriate title.

Having said that, I must admit that I could relate to most stories be it 'The Bats' where the woman despite all odds remains faithful to his wife beater husband or 'The Ultrasound' where the woman is asked to abort her child since she is a baby girl or 'Affair' where a husband leaves her wife for another woman. I personally liked 'Meeting Mrinal' where the woman finally accepts her fate and decides to move on in life. Since the author lives in America, I believe that it must have influenced the author's own perspective and the way has brought out the sentiments of the women in the stories.

These poignant stories did move me and made me contemplate about various things in life which I take for granted, but, for many it is a dream.

Linking it to A2ZChallenge and South Asian Challenge.

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