It is small story book consisting three stories namely ‘Literature Kotha’, ‘Perfume’ and ‘The House of Widows’. The first story ‘Literature Kotha’ is about a prostitute who loves to read English literature. This story has a very large canvas but the story ends perhaps earlier. However it is able reflect the mental trauma that protagonist ‘Meina Jaan’ had to undergo when she was forced in the business of prostitution by her friend ‘Zeinat’. The second story ‘Perfume’ is story of family which is about an unspoken truth which destroyed a family as foundation of trust was shaken and in the end ‘Sudesh’ and ‘Nisha’ end up losing their son ‘Chinmay’ and ‘Priya’ her brother.
The third story ‘The House of Widows’ is story of widowed woman ‘Sudha’ who lives with her widowed mother in law ‘Sailja’ who starts abusing and accusing ‘Sudha’ for the death of his son for her befriending with a man! But when ‘Sudha’ returns the same accusation, ‘Sailja’ gets paralysed. And in the end ‘Sailja’ changes her perspective
From the narration, it becomes very much clear that these are very first stories of the writer who wants to say as much as possible and in the process ends up following same old patterns. Instead of structuring these stories with fresh perspective, narrative and reflections, writer has used the same feminist voices and tones which now attract a lot of criticism. But the most satisfying things is that as the books move towards its end, the tone and texture start getting its own shape than just being captive of the trend.
Rajeev Upadhyay
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