Author: Rupa Bajwa
Publisher: Picador India
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 204
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9781447217749
Description
Set partly in the small, buzzing town of Amritsar and partly in New Delhi, this is the story of Rani, a young woman in contemporary India. She enjoys her work in a local beauty parlor, loves telling bedtime stories to her little nephew, and is blissfully in love with Shahrukh Khan, the movie star. However, her lower middle-class family lives in a state of constant struggle–to make ends meet, to hang on to their dreams, to keep their fragile lives from collapsing.
As their financial troubles escalate, so do Rani’s sister-in-law’s taunts, brother’s frustration and father’s resignation. Emotions run high. Rani’s stories dry up. And here begins Rani’s solitary journey of love and loss.
Rani finds herself in Delhi, in a head-on collision with a world completely alien to her. She finds an unlikely ally in her employer, Sadhna, a stalled novelist, who has been unable to function in a savage literary marketplace.
Tell Me A Story displays remarkable clarity and depth in drawing up the real semi-urban living in India. Fragile and touching, it reminds us of how thin and tenuous are the connections which bind us to our illusory, sane-seeming lives.
Praise for Tell Me a Story
‘Bajwa has a way with language. She writes with ease and impeccable fluency, her character descriptions flawless as she eases the reader into the lives of various protagonists…’
= Dawn
‘Her restrained telling is reminiscent of Kamala Markandaya’s work.’
= Hindustan Times
‘Bajwa tells her story simply and directly. The pace is absorbing and the environment realistic.’
= The Statesman
‘Rupa’s strengths as a novelist lie in her ability to take an ordinary character and spin a captivating story out of the parenthesis of everyday routine.’
= Elle
‘Rupa Bajwa writes in an unpretentious, small-town English perfectly suited to her unpretentious, small-town heroine.’
= The Hindu
‘… a superb use of the telling detail.’
= Deccan Herald
‘… Bajwa’s low-key approach to story-telling is so refreshing.’
= DNA
‘Bajwa’s story is sincere and satisfying …’
= Time Out
