India Today Books [Easy Bargain]

ODYSSEY: STORIES BY INDIAN WOMEN WRITERS SETTLED ABROAD
ED BY DIVYA MATHUR
STAR, PAGES: 136
PRICE: Rs 150

Stories by women are always welcome, especially in this celebratory time of Indian women bagging Booker and Onassis prizes. There is always a remote chance that a hidden genius may be spotted. No such luck with this collection, though. Odyssey is a brave attempt at publishing an anthology of 13 stories by women writers. The only thing the stories have in common is that their writers have settled abroad. Dubious distinction indeed; one I was more than willing to overlook, if the stories could overpower my initial reaction of "so what?". They couldn't.

The only redeeming feature of Odyssey are two of the stories. The Sale by Anita Desai, who lives up to her reputation as a wordsmith and storyteller. The misery of the artist in penury, as he desperately tries to sell his paintings to a bunch of yuppies, is quite chilling. Time is Unredeemable by Attia Hosain is a beautifully wrought, unsentimental tale of a young woman's nine-year wait for the stranger she calls husband to return from foreign lands.

Perhaps three other stories deserve mention. Dreams for Sale by Ira Saxena is a well-written reminiscence about childhood games and the juvenile imagination. The Puzzle by Usha Priamvada describes the plight of a woman who has lost her married lover and has chosen, of her own free will, to marry a widowed man. In Susham Bedi's In the Park, a brief encounter with a red-neck fellow American gives protagonist Manu a sense of belonging to his adopted homeland.

Divya Mathur is, however, on the right track, even if her first attempt at compiling an anthology has led her into the sidings. But editors should show more discernment than making the collection look like a ragtag of tales from a bargain basement. It will help, if at least the cover does not look like a government publication on the tax structure of middle-income groups in Barabanki.

AUTHORSPEAK: Kaizad Gustad

Writer on the Run
A book, film and a play: the Mumbai boy's still restless

By Nandita Chowdhury

For a 29-year-old, Kaizad Gustad has seen a lot. Or rather, learnt a lot. To tell the truth, all he did was roam endlessly. With a film called Bombay Boys starring Naseeruddin Shah and Rahul Bose, which will premier next month, and a just-released collection of short stories, Gustad seems ready to settle down. The title of his book Of No Fixed Address is meant to draw attention to his rootlessness which he wears as a badge of honour.

"It is not a travelogue, not a journal, but a fictionalised autobiography of the trial and tribulations of being a writer on the run," says Gustad, with all the hype and sense of mystique that a newly published author is expected to generate. The fact is he was on the run not because he was a writer but because he wanted to be one and didn't have enough to write about. The list of his stops is impressive though: London, Toronto, Sydney, Amsterdam, Bali, Paris, Hong Kong, Madrid, Los Angeles , Tahiti ... "It was the searching of an animal constantly running from pillar to post ... looking for a fixed address, running away from it at the same time," he says. Talking to him, one gets the impression that the search is nowhere near ending.

The personalised tales in the collection are told with considerable dexterity and the speed of a movie script. It is a blend of memorabilia and random observations that are so characteristic of a travel writer. After the travel, the writing began.The first story is about a prostitute in Falkland Road. "The last story A Train wrapped up my journey." When the manuscript was completed, Gustad, who was in London, rang up David Godwin, Arundhati Roy's literary agent. A meeting was fixed and Gustad's manuscript was picked up. Hopefully, a British publisher will release his book shortly.

A film and a book is an enviable achievement even for a man of 50 but Gustad is as restless as ever. He has just finished writing his first play Less than Zero, which he hopes to stage by March. For the time being, he says, that's it. "I am an indisciplined writer. When I have something more to say, I'll write." He is quite unlikely to hibernate for long. Even if he does, he always has the option to pack up and "leave town precisely in 10 minutes". Then he can keep running till the muse searches him out again.

January 19, 1998