Contemporary Indian Fiction

This collection of contemporary short stories has been edited by Khushwant Singh. Unlike most other short story collections that usually have a common theme through them, this one has a whole range of stories in one thin book. Ranging from folk tales to the futuristic sci-fi types. Not suprisingly, most of them are not even based in India nor are they based on Indians. I personally like both the sci-fi ones, although I hardly read that genre.
Like Mr Singh mentions in the introduction, we might not have produced great novelists or writers, but we sure have some really great short story writers.

Kalki Selected Stories

In the past couple of months I have read some of the best short stories written by our authors and suprisingly (or maybe not) some of the best ones have been written during the freedom struggle, specially the early 1900s. I picked up Kalki's selected stories on an impulse and it was a revelation, specially the first story. Its the story of ladies school principal who would have lost the love of her life to illiteracy. The irony is the tail is simply marvelous.
Most of the stories have been picked from the immensely popular magazine started by Kalki and have been translated from Tamil by his grand-daughter. Simple language, very basic background but each with a charm of its own. Most of the plots in the later half of the book, you will realise have already been used in a lot of south indian movies and talk a lot of the authors inclination to the freedom struggle, more so of the non-violent types..
Although some parts of it might be little difficult to comprehend for non-tams like me, its still recommended....

Tales from Firozsha Baag - Rohinton Mistry

Since the time i watched Pestonjee, i have been fascinated by the Parsi community. My father was of the opinion that there are only two kinds on Parsis, either they are phenominally brillant or they are totally dumb. And the only parsi i knew in my life.. the late Dr. Bharucha (my uncle's friend) , one of the most interesting person i have met in my life belonged the former catergory.
So it was this desire to know more about them that made me pick up Tales of Firozsha baag. The book contains about 10 short stories all revolving around the three apartment blocks of Firozsha baag and each with a reference to the other.
All the stories revolve around human emotions, be it lost love or someone trying to adjust to life in Canada. Each character is unique, be it Najamai or Rustomji or Nariman, but Kersi and Jehangir are the two that are most interesting.
Recommended........

Best Indian Short Stories - Vol I and II

Each one picked by Khuswant Singh, most of which he received during his stint with Illustrated weekly.
As he mentions in the introduction, that the art of short stories is thankfully still intact in India, whereas in most other places, they try to squeeze a novel into a couple of pages and pass it off as a short story.
The ones listed in these two books range from supernatural to mystic, from subjects dealing with human emotions to natural disasters etc. Notable among these are the ones by Qurratulain Hyder, P.L. Desphande, R.K. Laxman and Khuswant Singh. I specially liked Honour by Q.Hyder and the KS game from Khuswant Singh..
Most of these are translated from Urdu, punjabi and hindi and I guess they would have sounded better reading them in the language in which they were written coz somewhere along the line, the translated story loses its flavour..But a must have nonetheless..