A great short story reveals a moment of truth,’ writes Ruskin Bond while introducing this anthology of a 100 Indian Stories ably edited by
AJ Thomas. As the book’s cover declares, it turns out to be a feast of remarkable short fiction spanning three centuries. These stories begin in the 19th century, move on to the 20th, and end with two decades of the 21st century.
Bond likens the short story to a ‘flash of lightning.’ For those of us who happen to live in the hills of Landour, we are fortunate to have seen lightning—both forked and sheet—light up many a dark monsoon night. Then comes the roll of distant thunder. But you don’t have to worry because it is merely the applause as you exit a stadium.
Other writers, too, have found this ridge bristling with lightning: John Lang, the Australian-born author who spent his last years up here, found ‘Landour and the Cape of Good Hope’ as the best places in the world to see the displays of lightning.
This must be the biggest and most ambitious collection of Indian short fiction ever seen together between the covers of a single volume. This monumental anthology brings together a hundred years of the country’s finest writers.
Starting with grand masters like Rabindranath Tagore’s Kabuliwala and the Odia writer, Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Rebati from the 19th century, the book moves through the 20th century, gathering the best that the greats offered before those of the 21st century’s lights lit up the firmament.
To this banquet of words, the book brings the best written in any Indian language, region, generation, and literary tradition.
More than a hundred years later, still fresh is Tagore’s stunning Kabuliwala, considering that it was first published in 1898. It tells the tale of the immortal man from Afghanistan, who has, in a blind fit of rage, killed one of his debtors. Or there is Kalki’s offering in 1925 or the early decades of the 19th century, The Governor’s Visit, which first found publication in the magazine Navashakti.
He was a nationalist and freedom fighter who was jailed thrice during the Indian National Movement for freedom. Kalki (1899-1954) was the pen name of R Krishnamurthy, a writer known for his humorous and satirical articles and nationalist, historical novels, serialised in popular magazines and cherished by generations of readers. The story is translated from Tamil by Gowri Ramsarayan.
There is The Shroud by Munshi Premchand, translated by Muhammad Umar Memon. This story is believed to have been first published in 1935 as Kafan in Chaand.
The Magida Girl by Chalam, translated by Dasu Krishnamoorty and Tamraparni Dasu, is reprinted here. There is Of Fits and Rubs by Ismat Chughtai, translated by Muhammad Umar Memon, which was published in The Greatest Urdu Stories Ever Told (2017). Eggs Keep Falling from the Fourth Floor by Bhavika Govil had been shortlisted for the 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize.
Qurratulain Hyder (1927-2007) ranked amongst the foremost women writers of Urdu fiction is also part of this anthology. Leelawati Mohapatra published her debut novel, Hanging by a Tail (2008). She translates extensively from Odia into English. Arunava Sinha translated classic, modern, and contemporary Bengali fiction and nonfiction. Muhammad Umar Memon translated numerous works of Urdu fiction.
Vimla Devi is the pseudonym of Teresa de Piedade Almeida—the Goan born into a landed family and settled in Barcelona. Her story, Job’s Children, has been translated from Portuguese by Paul Melo e Castro. Or you can meet OV Vijayan, whose story The Hanging takes you to the hanging alongside the father at his son’s hanging. Courtesy of Geeta Kapur, the translator, you meet Nirmal Verma, a pioneer of the Nayi Kahani, in Mirror of Illusion.
But often, these translators get little credit for the fine job they do in finding the ‘exact’ word as opposed to the ‘close’ word. They are gifted lovers of literature who have sat up, often through lonely nights, to bring countless stories from Indian regional languages to readers all over the world. And no artificial intelligence or ChatGPT to help them either.
This book marks a celebration and exhibits our literary wealth—it salutes our lesser-known translators—without them, the book would be as pointless as a blank sheet of paper.