E-Paper
Debunking blind belief
What the new collection emphasises is blind belief, in whatever form, gets you nowhere.
Paradise and Other Stories
Khushwant Singh
Penguin Books India, Ravi Dayal
2004
Fiction
Pages: 239
Price: Rs 295
ISBN: 0-67-005778-9
Hardcover
Khushwant Singh is back once again, this time, with a collection of stories titled Paradise And Other Stories.
As the text on the inside flap of the book says: "In this sparkling new collection of stories, India's best-known writer addresses some pertinent questions: Why do we believe in miracles? Can a horoscope guarantee the perfect wife? Is the Kamasutra a useful manual for newly weds?"
It goes on to say that the book is "humorous, provocative, tongue-in-cheek, ribald and even, at times, tender."
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| Khushwant Singh continues his tirade against irrational beliefs and obscurantism in his latest short-story collection. |
An introspection on the use of the word “tender” here: Love in his books is rarely of the tender variety. All, perhaps, boils down to the sexual act, and that in Khushwant Singh's writing is hardly beautiful or tender. If you have read his recently published novel,
Burial at Sea
, you will remember the lurid description of sex between the lead character, an industrialist, modelled on Jawaharlal Nehru and the
sanyasin
.
Sex is just sound and fury, and then it is over. No place for tenderness here.
Coming back to this collection, in one of the stories, sex between Deepo and the lead character Zora Singh is always described thus: Deepo undid the cord of her salwar and opened her legs. Zora Singh then proceeds to pump the ever obliging Deepo and then lies limp.
Tenderness?
