A book post after a while.
TERRIBLE LOVES is my latest drop. It is a collection of 16 haunting short stories, ‘Tiny Tales of All-Consuming Passion’.
Where love becomes possession, tradition battles progress, and we discover the terrible beauty of reaching toward each other in a world designed to break us.
In “Broken Mirror,” Una searches for authentic connection while performing romance. In “Light of A Life” a fading artist is consumed by the light. “City Whisperer” follows Venkat as he replants his hometown into the city he’s migrated to. “Retrograde” sees Chitra’s life ruled and perhaps ruined, by the stars. “Johnny Boy” is about a girl and her trusty steed. “Mr Lova Lova” is confronted by women with needs and sexual power of their own. “Flame of the Forest” a blind boy sees what his fellow men can’t. “The Civilised” follows Kaataraja as he amasses a collection of shoes. “Adakkam” is the tension between one woman who won’t compromise and her partner, who did. “Motherland” follows a doctor’s return from Canada to find his aging mother erased by a hostile bureaucracy. “The Legend of Soorthani” reimagines historical conquest through forbidden love. “Is Happily Ever After” the story of true love? “Irrelevance” chronicles a pandemic’s forgotten victims through an obituary writer’s eyes. “What the Buddha said” is about a lifelong devotion to Nothing. “There Will Come Soft Rains” is our collective devotion to the past. “All There is Left to Say” is devoted to the love of not seeing reality.
These are tales about everyday people, myths, legends, artists, LGBTQ+ stories out of heartland India, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, the cynical, the hopeful, editors, villagers, animals, and spectres.
Several characters are inspired by people, cities and towns, and circumstances I have encountered while reporting as a journalist travelling across India. Their stories never quite were sufficient news fodder but their personalities and experiences of life, their inner worlds, and their struggles left an indelible impression on me as I hope they will on you too.
Their stories have been fictionalised. The tales they have to tell are social, political, and I believe, vital to the reality of our everyday life.
Some of these stories have appeared in national magazines such as Femina, journals such as Out of Print online, or been long-listed for a prize or two, such as the Commonwealth Short Story prize.
Inquiry emails sat in the inboxes of disinterested agents and publishers for nearly a decade now. Not that I have quarrel with that, I understand the market has its tides, but the things one wants to write are not necessarily dictated by what is flowing in the current. Hence, these are self-published with love and hope.
If these stories speak to you, please follow, share, and grab a copy, read, review, and tell others about the stories that move you. Independent books rely on your support to survive. I appreciate any leaning in to spreading these tales around.
You can also read two chapters for free on Stck.me here: https://taradas.stck.me/story/1251281/Terrible-Loves
Adrsta, the unseen economist, having pulled off the biggest economic heist in India’s history, reflects upon his life. After a lifetime’s fidelity to the statistic, to what the data says, he finds himself a failed academic, and a bitter, resentful man who feels he is owed recognition, status and respect. Not finding it forthcoming, he grasps for it. He is not sorry. Standing at the cusp of capital, government and media, each whirling in their own agenda, even he sees that it is the little people that get crushed under the wheels of this machinery.
Set against the backdrop of the Indian demonetization of 2016, Tender is a tale of love, loss and longing among socio-economic currents. The economist, one eye on the money; his mistress in the media, a clueless pawn; and the government, exploitative to a fault, a season of cryptocurrencies, society, divisive and volatile, the cash economies of Argentina and Sweden and China, a tanking rupee, and the myriad of characters caught in the cross currents make up this cultural drama.
Has he questioned the data society insufficiently? Has she, who breaks the mean, come too late? Has he already sold out? As he acts for himself now, will he throw love, loyalty, country and ethics on the line?
Tender is a larger tale of nation and notebandi. It’s a tale of statistics, self-serving interests and ethics. In a data-driven world, what is the value of an individual?
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