Talashnama: The Quest, Ismail Darbesh, translated from the Bengali by V Ramaswamy
Set in Sadnahati, a Muslim-majority village in West Bengal, Talashnama is the story of Riziya, an educated and headstrong woman with an anguished past.
Hounded by a devastating secret, Riziya elopes with her tutor, Suman Nath, a Hindu, although it is Tahirul – the local Imam torn between duty and desire – who is her true love. On the day she leaves, she allegedly writes anti-Islamic graffiti on the wall of the village mosque – an incident that both baffles and enrages the villagers. Ten years later, Suman Nath takes his own life, and Riziya must return to a Sadnahati fraught with disapproval and condemnation.
1990, Aramganj, Rakesh Kayastha, translated from the Hindi by Varsha Tiwary
Mohalla Aramganj is abuzz with wild conjectures about the impending arrival of LK Advani’s Ram Rath. Folk who could barely rouse themselves for the anti-Mandal agitation are now astir – what does their love of Ram call them to do? Conversations change, relationships are strained, new animosities crop up. How does all this ferment affect the swashbuckling “Mohammadiya Hindu” Ashiq Miyan, renowned Rambhakt and proprietor of the Two-in-One Tailoring shop?
A microcosm of India, Aramganj’s cast of small-town characters embodies caste pride, religious superstition and patriarchy, all of which have a hand in the grisly climax of this story.
White Blood, Nanak Singh, translated from the Punjabi by Dilraj Singh Suri
When a ticket officer apprehends a ticketless traveller at the Amritsar Railway Station, he is shocked to discover that the penniless young man in tattered clothes is none other than the widely acclaimed writer Gupteshwar. But even more disconcerting than the state of the author is the story of his new novel, one that lays bare the moral rot besieging 20th-century Punjab. As the author reads from his unfinished manuscript, it becomes clear that the tale of the two women he is weaving is far from fictional.
A Person is a Prayer, Ammar Kalia
Bedi and Sushma’s marriage is arranged. When they first meet, they stumble through a faltering conversation about happiness and hope and agree to go in search of these things together. But even after their children Selena, Tara and Rohan have grown up and have their own families, Bedi and Sushma are still searching. Years later, the siblings attempt to navigate life without their parents. As they travel to the Ganges to unite their father’s ashes with the opaque water, it becomes clear that each of them has inherited the same desire to understand what makes a life happy, the same confusion about this question and the same enduring hope.
17, Morris Road, Parul Sharma
Soon-to-be empty-nester Gayatri Trivedi has found herself at a crossroads: her only son is off to the land of excessive pizza and cola, her husband remains indifferent to her feelings, and the object of her teenage affection is inviting her to Dehradun. But Dehradun has changed a lot, and so has Arbour House, the colonial-era bungalow that still has a piece of her heart. Now as she returns, she also returns in time, reminiscing about the memories she made with people who changed her life when she was sixteen.
Darako, Parashar Kulkarni
Set in colonial India, Darako features a paanwallah and his secrets, a spitting competition that grows to be a massive affair attracting talents from everywhere, an Afghan rebel who is a star spitter and a mystic, gun-running during the freedom struggle, a daylight murder and a tangy romance amidst the utter chaos. In this world, up is down, and down is up. Darako uses satire to comment on religion, identity and freedom.
