Tag Archives: Fiction

In My Hands Today…

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Time Stops at Shamli and Other Stories – Ruskin Bond

An enchanting collection of stories from the little-known heartland of India Ruskin Bond’s characters—who live for the most part in the country’s small towns and villages—are not the sort who make the headlines but are, nonetheless, remarkable for their quiet heroism, their grace under pressure and the manner in which they continue to cleave to the old values: honesty, fidelity, a deep-rooted faith in God, family and their neighbour. They do have problems, of course—the sudden death of a loved parent, unfulfilled dreams, natural calamities, ghostly visitations, a respected teacher gone crooked, strangers who make a nuisance of themselves in a town marooned in time—but these are solved with a minimum of fuss and tremendous dignity. Taken together these stories are a magnificent evocation of real India by one of the country’s foremost writers.

In My Hands Today…

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Chef – Jaspreet Singh

Kirpal Singh is riding the slow train to Kashmir. With India passing by his window, he reflects on his destination, which is also his past: a military camp to which he has not returned for fourteen years.

Kirpal, called Kip, is shy and not yet twenty when he arrives for the first time at General Kumar’s camp, nestled in the shadow of the Siachen Glacier. At twenty thousand feet, the glacier makes a forbidding battlefield; its crevasses claimed the body of Kip’s father. Kip becomes an apprentice under the camp’s chef, Kishen, a fiery mentor who guides him toward the heady spheres of food and women.

In this place of contradictions, erratic violence, and extreme temperatures, Kip learns to prepare local dishes and delicacies from around the globe. Even as months pass, Kip, a Sikh, feels secure in his allegiance to India, firmly on the right side of this interminable conflict. Then, one muggy day, a Pakistani “terrorist” with long, flowing hair is swept up on the banks of the river and changes everything.

In My Hands Today…

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The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra

The young Brahman Samar has come to the holy city of Benares to complete his education and take the civil service exam that will determine his future. But in this city redolent of timeworn customs, where pilgrims bathe in the sacred Ganges and breathe in smoke from burning ghats along the shore, Samar is offered entirely different perspectives on his country. Miss West and her circle, indifferent to the reality around them, represent those drawn to India as a respite from the material world. And Rajesh, a sometimes violent, sometimes mystical leader of student malcontents, presents a more jaundiced view.

In My Hands Today…

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Beijing Coma – Ma Jian

Dai Wei has been unconscious for almost a decade. A medical student and a pro-democracy protester in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, he was struck by a soldier’s bullet and fell into a deep coma. As soon as the hospital authorities discovered that he had been an activist, his mother was forced to take him home. She allowed pharmacists access to his body and sold his urine and his left kidney to fund special treatment from Master Yao, a member of the outlawed Falun Gong sect. But during a government crackdown, the Master was arrested, and Dai Wai’s mother—who had fallen in love with him—lost her mind.

As the millennium draws near, a sparrow flies through the window and lands on Dai Wei’s naked chest, a sign that he must emerge from his coma. But China has also undergone a massive transformation while Dai Wei lay unconscious. As he prepares to take leave of his old metal bed, Dai Wei realizes that the rich, imaginative world afforded to him as a coma patient is a startling contrast with the death-in-life of the world outside.

In My Hands Today…

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Staying On – Paul Scott

Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pangkot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their landlady, the imposing Mrs Bhoolabhoy, threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days.