Book Review: Khushwant Singh selects Best Indian Short Stories Vol. 1

If you dont care if I talk about Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, either because you've already seen it or because you dont want to, then I will in the next couple of posts. But for now...

Remember I wrote about Khushwant Singh's selection of short stories part 2? Well, this is the precursor. And I was so excited to see it that i just snatched it up, and its been a while admittedly since Ive read any short stories.

First published in 2001, this book offers a solid introduction to not only the traditional art of the short story, namely, one a few pages long, comprising only a few key characters, and confined in time and space, with "a well-plotted narrative that drives its central theme". Khushwant Singh, who was editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India for a decade in the 1970's, created a formidable reputation for teh magazine in relation to the literary work it published, and the financial encouragement it gave its contributors, has handpicked some of India's best short stories. He chooses 26 stories that encompass the length and breadth of India, in terms of culture, language, region and period, dealing with both pre-and post partition time frames, situations both urban and rural, both international and national, and everything in between.

Of course there is a bit of stereotyping in terms of region and subject. The Bengalis and Lucknowis are far ahead, writing about everything from love, loss, eunuchs, extramarital affairs, while the Urdu writers write about love, revolution, high culture and dealing with change in the form of multiple deaths - of culture, of an era. The Punjabis write about sex and money, the Brits about Britishness, the South Indians about poetry, Ruskin Bond about nature. Kabir Bedi writes about growing up without mental shackles, Mulk Raj Anand writes about villages. There ar stories that cover rape, marriage, the ephemeral naure of high society, the reality that is drabness, and unglamour, and pain. There is spiritualism and fantasy and honour and lust.

My favourites are the Urdu writers - Ismat Chugtai and Qurratulain Hyder. Ismat because I understand her women, strange as they may be, and in her story Housewife she has really described in vivid detail the perverse nature of the humand mind - Hyder's stories deal with a bildungsromantic season, with the more poignant topics of hope and blindness and... stoicism almost. My favourite story is Honour. Amrita Pritam is well-known, but the story was surreal, made one feel like one was high or something - though she does quite a formidable job of stream of consciousness, though not as starkly clearly as Virginia Woolf. The Birdman by Margaret Bhatty is another nice surprising story, with great empathic value. Krishan Chander is an interesting Hindi writer who, like a modern-day Munshi Premchand, has quite an eye for human nature and can write about various situations. Midnight by Wendy Fernandes is also a fun story, though I think a tad clumsy in its introduction of characters.

Conclusion: All in all, a great read, and really quite nicely crafted short stories. Some might surprise you with their power-packed emotional punches, but then, that's why they're worth reading!