| October 13, 1997 | ||
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 Rustic Tales Detailed characterisation marred by mediocre writing. By Ashok Banker WINTER COMPANIONS AND OTHER STORIES This collection of short stories, set in Neelam Saran Gour's native Uttar Pradesh, is so immersed in the everyday colloquialisms and details of small-town life that it seems almost regressive to be reading it in the age of Rushdie, Seth and Roy. The collection opens with "For Your Eyes Only", a dramatic monologue so strongly reminiscent of Robert Browning's famous poem Fra Lippo Lippi that it comes as no surprise when the story ends with a similarly chilling twist. The eponymous story "Winter Companions" is one of the better ones in the bunch. Two old men -- a Hindu and a Muslim -- meet in a neighbourhood park daily for their morning constitutional. The character of the Muslim, Siddique, his exuberant witticisms and wordplay are pleasantly entertaining. Still better is "Pretty Woman", a train story about a Casanova who meets his match in a most unexpected fellow passenger. In its eerie unpredictability and engrossing suspense, the story reminded me oddly of the train scene from the classic Hindi horror film Jaani Dushman. I mean it as a tribute to Gour's ability to paint simple, rustic details and characters in living colours. This ability finds its epiphany in the story "Chandu and the Bissyaar", a rousing tale of a city-returned village bumpkin who tries to use a vcr -- the "bissyaar" of the title -- to gain the favour of the village Thakur and ends up introducing the villagers to pornography. The other stories are painfully over-written, the tragicomedy effect the author strives for often emerges as clumsy bathos. The author can do much better than this -- and already has, in her immensely readable novel Speaking of '62. This collection makes for pleasant park bench reading for those who prefer their fiction homely. Mottled Dawn An impressive collection of the currently fashionable writer whose Partition stories overflow with pathos and irony. The Silent Journey The first work of fiction by a UK-based doctor about the loneliness and personal trauma of a widow in Jhansi. Better prose could have helped. What Really Happened During the Mutiny The tireless chronicler of the Mutiny is at it again, this time with a day-to-day account.. |
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