Thanks to a 2006 tele-film, this has become Urdu writer Rajinder Singh Bedi’s signature story. Set in the violent upheaval of British India’s 1947 partition, it follows Sunderlal, a Hindu activist whose wife, Lajwanti, is abducted into Pakistan. The ironic descriptions of domestic life (Lajwanti considered vicious beatings from Sunderlal “normal”, and appears confused by the kind treatment of her Muslim captor) highlight traditional Indian attitudes towards women at the time. A second irony is that although Sunderlal campaigns for the rehabilitation of abducted women, he refuses to discuss Lajwanti’s experiences with her, preventing both from finding closure. More…
Kabuliwallah
If you are a parent, this touching story by Rabindranath Tagore may well bring a tear to your eye. One of Tagore’s most popular stories, it describes an unlikely friendship between the precocious five-year-old daughter of a middle-class Bengali writer and an Afghani fruit-seller (Kabuliwallah). When the Kabuliwallah visits on the girl’s wedding day after an eight-year stint in prison, she barely acknowledges him. On learning why the fruit-seller had spent so much time with his daughter, the writer and Kabuliwallah form an instant bond. Themes: childhood innocence, friendship, growing up, change, class, prejudice, fatherly love. More…
The Last Question
The best way to introduce this story by Isaac Asimov is through his own words: This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written. After all, I undertook to tell several trillion years of human history in the space of a short story…. I also undertook another task, but I won’t tell you what that was lest I spoil the story for you. Although there is very little character development or action in the story, the ending is so powerful that almost everyone who reads it remembers it. More…
A Guide to Berlin
This early story by Vladimir Nabokov is not about places to see in Berlin, but rather the narrator’s observations of some everyday aspects of city life. Through a series of vignettes he describes pipes left on the footpath, the streetcar system, people he sees working on the streets, the city zoo and the pub in which he is drinking with a friend. The major theme is the relationship between time and memory: how some things we experience today will become “future recollections”, and the artist’s duty to record his/her experiences in detail for the benefit of future generations. More…
The Other Wife / Woman
In this vignette by French author Colette, a recently married couple visiting a restaurant chance upon the husband’s ex-wife. She is attractive, sophisticated and self-assured. Alice, the new wife, is younger, naïve, submissive and insecure. The self-centered, controlling husband cannot understand why his first wife had “difficulty” with their relationship. The new marriage, in which Alice flirtatiously plays the part of a trophy wife, appears more to his liking. Unfortunately for him, the encounter raises doubts and a question in Alice’s mind: What more did she (the ex-wife) want from him? She finds herself envying and respecting the stronger woman. More…