HYDERABAD: Keki N Daruwalla’s collection of short stories titled Islands is nothing but the author’s yearning for solitude in today’s chaotic and crowded world. His imaginative descriptions of the sea demonstrate his profound love for islands, which he says are nothing but planks of wood floating in the sea.
The renowned Indian poet has used rich imagery and has vividly described islands and mountains in these stories. “For me, I hope my love for the sea comes through. The beauty of small islands, living with the roar of the sea sinking into you, the solitude inbuilt in the very word island, and the metaphor it stands for, that itself could be the end. And of course, the slow rhythms of nature, sea breeze and tide, and how all this should slow us down a bit - I hope some of this comes through,” writes the author. In more than 14 short stories, he conjures up solitary tracts of land, self-contained mini-continents and autonomous landmasses in a sadhu’s third-eye - Yogananda builds them like he would a dreamscape. Otherwise, they transform into objects of desire - Arnaaz sails towards the declining sun, in search of an islet of aloneness and youth. Sometimes, they come with the promise of abundance, like when Vidyarthi scours his reef for a magic shrub. Even as sometimes they silently disappear - Santa Xavier is swept away by blustery winds and rumours.
In each story that is different and disparate, Daruwalla asks what it means to abandon an island or inhabit one. Each of his characters is on a private journey towards an isle of peace, an isle beyond questions of faith and unbelief, an isle past remembrance and forgetting. Daruwalla writes, “I also wanted to write stories about people as islands in this vast world - a Khampa warrior escaping to Tawang; and across the monastery walls an isolated monk surrounded by his prayers and rigid ritual; a woman who has lost her memory; a swami who goes senile and walks into a flooded river.”
Ultimately, each character is an island unto himself or herself, from the retiring vagrant on bird island, to Dinaz, feeling her way on her own through a fast receding past, to the wild Khampa, separated from his people, who realizes there must be worse things than being alone, but does not know what they are.
In all these short stories, Daruwalla’s love for the sea becomes evident, as also his yearning for the kind of solitude that evades us in this overcrowded world. While some stories are interesting, some are pretty boring. It is not as if one can relax with this book during a weekend, as most of the stories need the reader’s full attention.