Surreally Real

This is precisely why Sathya Saran's collection acquires a certain relevance. True, the author cannot match the distinctive style of someone like Hariharan. But she is, without question, a fine writer capable of handling this form of storytelling with adequate ease and competence.

The characters spawned by Saran's creative imagination are ordinary human beings; the plots quite often bridge the chasm between the explicitly real and the startlingly surreal. Frequently, the climactic twists leave the reader with a feeling of surprise just as the plots seem to be moving in.

In Rendezvous, arguably the best story in the collection, two young lovers meet each other at a scheduled junction. Jennifer, the young man's subject of infatuation who had died, lies buried in a grave close by. So, was that the reason why he chose to meet his girlfriend in this secluded spot? Penning the tale's climax, Saran writes: "She laughed a throaty laugh...twined her fingers firmly around my hand...and moved alongside. 'Yes,' she said. But not Sheila. Jennifer." The sudden turnaround encapsulates Saran's approach to storytelling. Most of the time, she is involved in depicting circumstantial oddities in a common man's life. Love, awe, yearning, despair—her characters are emotional people who journey through their lives in an indistinct fashion till events overtake them.

What's most important: the author seems a cautious practitioner remarkably aware of her virtues and limitations as a storyteller. Her short stories aren't casually executed ventures, the plots involve a lot of conscious craftsmanship, making the collection more than merely readable.