Reading a short story anthology can be a risky venture yielding mixed results, perhaps a bit like choosing a good one. Even if you don’t connect to a story, the one right after could hit the mark perfectly. For the time-limited reader, it may be tempting to choose the authors you trust or pick a few that seem promising, but for an anthology like Aleph’s Greatest Gujarati Stories Ever Told, I would recommend devouring the full course. Because while I obviously can’t guarantee that every story in the book will speak to you, the real joy is in how the stories speak to each other.

A nice balance

Rita Kothari, who curated the collection and also translated the majority of the stories into English, openly acknowledges the subjective norms surrounding the term “greatest” that illuminates the book’s title. She is transparent about her approach to curation, writing in the foreword, “the stories in this volume are not the product of a preconceived framework to include the best known or the lesser known. It is their relationship with each other, despite their differences, which can perhaps be an explanation for what was essentially an intuitive choice.

The book performs a delicate balancing act – for every perspective offered, there is another to contrast it. In Dwiref’s ‘Saubhagyavati: The Fortunate Wife’ we see a wife pressed for sex, trapped by the bonds of marriage, while in Bhupen Khakhar’s hilarious ‘Vaadki’ a husband limits physical intimacy with his wife twice a week and rejects her request. to increase this number.

“Jumo Bhishti”, “The Black Horse” and “Chunni” give us three stories where humans are reunited with animals in a world where, in the words of Kothari, “some days being human is an aspiration, not a fact. “. One of these relationships is that of deep affection, the other of hostility, and the other is too ambiguous to fit comfortably into a single description.

Then there are stories that contain contradictory elements in themselves, which today could be viewed from an empowering or problematic angle. In Nazir Mansuri’s “The Bilge Water” we discover the striking figure of Raji, a fierce and beautiful woman who surpasses men in terms of strength. It is violent in a moment of well-justified self-defense, but also in a moment of simple outrage. After her husband leaves, she strikes up a relationship with a young boy named Uko who takes on a seductive sex tenor as he gets older. It’s hard to assess a story like this through the parameters I know – and the frustration and unease this story produced in me made it an unforgettable read.

Time Machine

With authors ranging from the legendary KM Munshi, who served as a member of India’s Constitutional Committee, to twenty-seven-year-old rising star Abhimanyu Acharya, the book spans the decades. This journey is reflected in the language and the analogies used. Munshi’s “A Letter” is written from the perspective of a child bride who moved into her husband’s house at the age of thirteen. Her letter describes her suffering, but also what was once complete devotion to her husband in evocative prose.

Meanwhile, Charya’s “Chunni” is set in the age of Instagram and Tinder, written in simpler, more straightforward language. It features another female protagonist whose suffering is more moderate but familiar. What’s as interesting as the changes in writing over time are the elements that remain the same. “If caste and gender inequality remain a recurring phenomenon, it is a reflection of how, as a society, we continue to be beset by this reality,” writes Kothari.

“Doors” and “Maajo” are written by female authors, Himanshi Shelat and Panna Trivedi, who have voices that are both sensitive and disturbing. Both stories also feature a desire for upward mobility manifesting in the desire for a clean and safe bathroom. This desire paradoxically leads the protagonists to danger.

Many stories exist in a period of transition, characterized by a break from tradition while still being attached to it. In one of my favorites, “Nandu” by Dashrath Parmar, we see the narrator befriend a talkative young servant named Nandu in a ramshackle guest house in the hills. After discovering that they are from the same village, the narrator becomes reluctant to share anything more about himself in case he reveals his caste. He wants to believe the best of Nandu, but past experiences of discrimination cross his mind, infecting his optimism.

It’s not a story of overt violence, but rather an inner battle that unfolds inside the head of the protagonist. Power positions are also complex, with the narrator questioning himself and why he is so afraid of a hotel employee’s opinion.

While “Nandu” features a protagonist unable to escape his identity despite the distance between himself and his village, “Creamy Layer” travels a similar course in a different direction. Neerav Patel provides another example of social mobility producing confused and displaced identities from the perspective of a couple visiting their village to distribute invitations to their daughter’s wedding in Mumbai.

The journey is deeply uncomfortable, with Mr. and Mrs. Vaghela feeling embarrassed by their family’s illiteracy and relative poverty, as well as the guilt of having abandoned and neglected them. “If they hadn’t left the village to go to the city, if they hadn’t abandoned their traditional profession for their white-collar jobs, if they hadn’t left the stables to live in an apartment, could they have fostered these relationships? May be.”

Kothari notes that “like many other literary traditions in India, the genesis of short story in Gujarat also owes its origins to both folk/lok histories and colonial modernity”. Many stories exist somewhere between a collectivist culture and the individualism that dominates the Western novel. Unlike many contemporary novels I’ve read, the politics aren’t immediately readable, but built into the story through surnames and subtle details.

Although the book is bound by the label of “Gujarati stories”, it is a collection that is coordinated without an agenda to be coherent. If you think you know Gujarat, it promises to broaden and confuse your understanding. And if, like me, you only know the surface, it will provide an answer to the puzzle with an ever-changing image on the box.

Greatest Gujarati Stories Ever Told, Selected and edited by Rita Kothari, Aleph Book Company.