Good Collection of Short Stories. Review on Parting of the Strangers and Other Stories - Sattam Dasgupta

When it comes to book reviews, I am dead serious. Don’t know, why? Today the book open for discussion is ‘Parting of the Strangers and Other Stories’ by Sattam Dasgupta. It’s fiction, collection of short stories, total 16 stories of different length. No matter what…the crux is that the book is interesting to read, otherwise people get bored easily in collection of short stories. I have already read this book thrice and reviewed it at a couple of sites. To me, the writing style of the author mattered most and Sattam didn’t leave any stone unturned to prove that. First point, he is good writer. Second, he is a keen observer. Third, he seems to be a well-read guy.

The collection is modern in its approach as characters and their peculiarities and situations are all staged against the modern urban culture of India; it becomes all the more concrete as when we see the traffic of Bangalore and Kolkata has been occurring repeatedly in the stories.

I would say not all stories are placed around human relationship, though most of them are. However, some stories are different, for instance that story about the teacher, it reassures that teachers are different and it is almost impossible to attack their morality and ethics. You cannot make them bend so easily. The title story – Parting of the Strangers – is an eye catcher. I am sure many of us meet strangers on train journeys, road, signals, etc. but we have a tendency to overlook them. Why? This story is associated with feelings, when that girl indicates of going out of Bangalore, the narrator feels sad and bad.

Another standout aspect in the book is American dream. I have seen that there are many stories that see the zenith of the climax because of ‘America’ factor. For instance, the story Porcelain Fingers is purely based on America obsessed theme, other traces can be found in the Rahul series stories, and then we also have in the first story: Receding Shoreline.

No doubt the collection is good, but possibly you may come out with mixed feelings…that could happen easily because of being human factor. If you ask me personally, this book deserves genuine praise. Sattam should try his hands in full-length novels now. What you say…read the book and let me know?