Edited by Ahmed Faiyaz
Price: 199/-
Publishers: Grey Oak Publishers
My Rating: 3.5/5
Epilogue:
Edited by the bestselling author Ahmed Faiyaz, this anthology explores the conflict, chaos and confusion in the lives of interesting and colourful characters in Urban India. The reclusive kid with a beautiful bicycle; a migrant to Mumbai with Old Monk on his breath, trying to get off a Virar Fast at Borivali; the misunderstood watchman at the library who befriends a little girl; a playstation loving, spoilt brat, who is smitten by his mathematics tutor; an old widower who longs for some intimacy with the opposite sex; a confused writer who has to choose between his wife and a seductress; the gargoyle who is the boss’s pet at a call centre; a mild mannered doctor whose love for yoga puts him on breaking news; a project manager who hates handing out the pink slip; an emotionally scarred woman in the bazaars of Kamathipura; the barat on a silent night in a one horse town in Rajasthan; the neighbourhood didi with dark secrets of her own and a lot more…
"Urban shots: Crossroads" is a collection of 30 short stories by 26 authors. Most of these authors are bloggers and debutant writers.
I liked the book Love, life and all that jazz by Ahmed Faiyaz. So, when I saw his name on the cover page , I was attracted to this one. He is the editor for this and also contributed two stories. I felt the collection of stories in this book is better than the previous book “Urban shots”. I liked the subjects on which the stories were built.
Four stories are missing in my copy because of the printing error. In the rest, except few, every story is unpredictable and holds an emotion. The stories are fresh, the language is simple and the price is ok. Because of the variation from one story to another, this is not a book which you can enjoy by reading completely at one stretch. But you would surely enjoy, if you read two or three stories at a time.
My favourites are...
- Mervin by Ahmed Faiyaz
- Crossroads by Ahmed Faiyaz
- The Gap by Saritha Rao
- Pity by Paritosh Uttam
- Look How Far We've Come by Shreya Maheshwari
Even the stories Hunch( by Karthik),The Last Week(by Srinivasan) and Rajasthan Summer( by Ayesha Heble) are impressive.
Books like these are great initiatives that will definitely help the upcoming writers. Looking forward to read the “Urban shots: Bright lights” and “Urban shots: The love collection”.
If you are looking for heartwarming short stories, go for this.
