Acclaimed poet Keki N. Daruwalla has 10 volumes of poetry and several short story collections to his credit. His latest collection of short fiction, Going: Stories of Kinship, explores the nuances of familial ties and their discontents. Poetry seeps into Daruwalla’s prose as naturally as rain seeps into the parched earth. The lyrical stories of Going are rooted as much to the charged terrain of the human heart as to the physical place and culture they are set in.
In ‘The Brahmaputra Trilogy’, a father’s callousness stalks his son and makes him what he is. Beginning in 1947, this trilogy covers wide swathes of time and history. Political upheavals and personal dramas animate the stories, which fit together like pieces of an intricate puzzle. I became so heavily invested in the characters that I read the stories at one go. I reread them to admire the craftsmanship and dexterity with which Daruwalla weaves the three together to form an exquisite whole.
Cover of Going: Stories of Kinship
A son’s disappearance scars his parents in ‘Bird Island’ while a beloved daughter’s love life shocks her father to the core in ‘Daughter’. Though the foray into the history of the Parsis in ‘Daughter’ reads like a long-winded lesson, the ageing father’s sense of uncertainty is poignantly expressed.
In ‘The Night of the Bhikshu’, a man retreats from the world and his family — “all he wanted was tranquillity, the night around him, the chirr of the cicada and the croak of the bullfrog.” The bhikshu longs to be free of the past and shed the ties that bind, but the past inevitably intrudes.
In ‘Going’, a granddaughter comes face to face with death while staying with her grandmother. It is hard to let go of a loved one, but she must learn to make peace with loss.
Absences haunt the characters as much as presences. While there are questions aplenty about family bonds, answers remain elusive, as they do in life.
Going: Stories of Kinship, Keki N. Daruwalla, Speaking Tiger, ₹499
The writer is the author of A Happy Place and Other Stories.
