Desire and deviousness
vanilla desires & other stories Edited by Vidhu Panicker & Annie Chandy Mathew Unisun, 2010, pp 249, Rs 250
This is one of the best short story anthologies that Unisun has brought out in recent times. Almost all the 34 short stories in the collection, including five prize-winning entries of the Unison Reliance TimeOut Short Story Competition 2008-2009, are fresh and keep the readers engaged. The stories talk of love and desire, sadness and guilt, guile and innocence, horror and hatred and a varied battery of other emotions. While no deliberate attempt has been made to have a common theme, one motif that runs throughout the collection is that of human frailties and its consequences.
The prize-winning entries stand out for their content and execution. ‘Vanilla Desires’ by Eshwar Sundaresan which won the first prize in the contest is about the desires of a woman’s heart and the round-about way she goes to meet it. It is so well-written that the reader does not understand her motives until the last few lines where everything falls into place. So also the second prize-winning entry, ‘Blood Lies’ by Vandana Kumari Jena. A deceit is revealed and acts as a twist in the tale as the story hurtles towards the end. Both stories are fast-paced and race to the end without distracting the reader with languid prose.
The third prize-winner, Manjul Bajaj’s story, ‘A Falling Star’, is slightly different in execution as we get to know the protagonist and her life and sorrow through the eyes of others associated with her. Another brilliant story in the collection is ‘Into Thin Air’ by Kavitha Mandana which won a special mention at the contest. It is a satire on bureaucratic corruption.
Written with gentle humour it takes a sarcastic look at how our government departments work, or rather does not work. Reflecting the times we live in, it will appeal to anybody who has had to deal with the apathetic stupor of corrupt officials energized into action only when self-interest beckons.
Another story that won a special mention in the contest is ‘Love and Longing on MG Road’ by Indira Chandrasekhar which gives readers glimpses of the true makeup of its characters through the panic attacks of a lovelorn man.
Apart from the prize-winning entries there are several other equally readable stories, all of which cannot be mentioned here for lack of space. However, here are some of them: ‘The Communist’ by Tasneen Zafar Padiath which is a young girl’s recollection of her affectionate uncle who went from being a lofty communist to a mere mortal in a short time. ‘Crooked Old House’ by Payal Talreja, the story of a little boy and his attempts to get to know his estranged maternal grandfather and the tragic consequences that follow can leave a lump in your throat, just as ‘Brownies for Christmas’ by Hasmita Chander which is a gentle story that talks of loss and what it can do to the human mind.
‘Dressed for the Occasion’ by Geralyn Pinto sums up in a couple of pages human greed and the depths to which people sink to further their interests, not even sparing the dead. ‘Ripe Mangoes’, the second story by Manjul Bajaj is about desire and deviousness and how a woman keeps the man she loves without wreaking her marriage to a man she does not love, through an arrangement of sorts.
That most of the writers in the anthology are not professional writers, but casual and occasional ones make the anthology more interesting.
