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Short stories might not be as popular as long novels, one of the arguments being that there’s not much room for character development and thus you are never very invested in them. But for me, stories don’t always need a clear beginning, middle, and an end. Sometimes it can be just a chapter in someone’s life or talk about a particularly difficult or humorous situation. And it’s quite fun to let these little nuggets occupy your mind, especially during stressful times like these. Here I recommend three of my favorite short story collections if you want to dip into this wonderful world.

‘Revenge’ by Yoko Ogawa

Revenge is more of a Japanese literary short novel, with its stories interconnecting in overt and covert ways that remind you of Haruki Murakami. I could read Revenge by Yoko Ogawa a hundred times over and still not be bored. The book was initially published in 1998 but its popularity soared after its English edition came out. Translated by Stephen Snyder, the 11 dark tales in Revenge are macabre at their best.

The writing is simple yet gripping and the stories are eerily good. There’s a story where a woman buys strawberry cake for her son on her birthday, but he’s been dead for years. In another, the neighbor of a struggling novelist discovers a carrot in the shape of a human hand before her ex-husband’s handless body turns up in the same garden. Then there’s a bag maker who designs intricate bags for a woman whose heart is outside her chest. Revenge is full of these odd characters that send a chill down your spine.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I love the way Adichie writes. There’s something very raw and real about the emotions of her characters. I really enjoyed ‘Purple Hibiscus’, which was longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize, and ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ and ‘Americanah’. But it is her short story collection, ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’, that is my all-time Adichie favorite.

A collection of 12 short stories, The Thing Around Your Neck focuses mainly on the lives and experiences of Nigerian women caught up in political or religious violence. Only one story has a male narrator.

In ‘The American Embassy’, a woman applies for asylum but can’t bring herself to talk about her son’s murder during the visa process. In ‘Tomorrow Is Too Far’, a woman reveals the secrets behind her brother’s death. Then there’s ‘On Monday of Last Week’ where a university educated Nigerian woman is forced to work as a house help in America to make ends meet.

These brilliant stories of women coping with change, loneliness and longing, and learning to survive the odds, are about what binds us as friends, lovers, and families. They are also, in trademark Adichie style, heavy with social and political comments that make you think.

‘The Awakening and Other Stories’ by Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin was one of the very few 19^th century American writers whose work explored new and startling territory. The Awakening caused much outrage and then went out of print for decades when it was first published in 1899.

Edna Pontellier is on holiday with her husband and two young children when she is pursued by the charming and unmarried Robert Lebrun. It leads to an affair that has Edna wanting to break away from her passionless marriage.

The story about a woman defying societal norms is among the boldest and earliest works of feminist fiction and regarded as a proto-feminist masterpiece today. Laced with humor but ultimately heartbreaking, Chopin’s transformative stories that emphasize women’s roles in society were all ahead of their times, but raise vital questions and concerns even today.

Strictly for children because an adult who’s used to watching multiple genres of films might find “Pahuna: The Little Visitors” a touch boring. Not just because it’s a children’s film. We’ve watched and enjoyed numerous children’s movies before, but Pahuna, even with all its effort, lacks that charm to hold adult attention. At the same time, from children’s perspective, it could be a cute little film that also gives them a few handy moral lessons along the way.

A family fleeing violence in a hilly border area of Nepal makes tries to cross over to Sikkim in India. They join other villagers in the process and on their way, the children—Amrita, Pranay, and Bishal—get separated from their parents. The film does not give any timeline but from a few references in the dialogues, we can assume the date is right after the 2001 royal massacre in Nepal. The ages of the children are also never mentioned; perhaps the eldest Amrita (Ishika Gurung) as well as her younger brother Pranay (Anmoul Limboo) is around 10-12, with a couple of years between them. Bishal, the youngest, is an infant.

After the children get separated from their family, they join the villagers making their way to a church in Peling, Sikkim, seeking refuge. The group includes a know-it-all old man called Rai Budo (Mahendra Bajgai) who spins tales laced with false information about Christianity. The young children take his stories seriously and are instilled with deep fear of Christians, specially the church priest. Not wanting to risk their lives with Christians at the church, the children run way from the group and find themselves living in an abandoned bus in the jungle.

The story of Pahuna, even though it sometimes places children in rather harrowing situations, is a feel-good account of how children learn from their environment and adapt to it. Left alone with no adults to take care of them, Amrita and Pranay take on the role of breadwinners as well as caretakers for infant Bishal. They face conflicting situations as the film progresses and despite their young age, come up with solutions that will keep their family together. Young children become adults in Pahuna and display earnestness, accountability and dependability in a way that could inspire other children watching the movie.

Produced by successful Indian actress Priyanka Chopra’s Purple Pebble Pictures, and written and directed by Paakhi A. Tyrewala, the 1hr 28mins drama has all the characteristics of a Bollywood feature film. The background score is lively, the original soundtracks melodious, and the cinematography able to capture the essence of the hills. The overall packaging is simple, organic, yet commercially sellable.

The dialogues of Biswas Timshina are the only let down. It is evident that the film has used mostly non-actors in all roles and acting coach Veena Mehta has done a decent job of grooming them to express themselves on screen.

But Timshina’s dialogues are so uninspiring, they take away the spark of the characters. Timshina seems to be trying too hard to suppress the Sikkimese Nepali argot. The need to represent a region with a sizable Nepali-speaking community is lost in Timshina’s efforts to make all conversations sound formal. As a result, in some scenes, the characters seem to be reading out of a Nepali textbook. In all fairness, it might be a deliberate move to make dialogues more comprehensible, but again, the dialogues do alienate the characters from their settings, which is a definite no-no.

Who should watch it?

Children should, and learn a few things maybe. Adults can definitely accompany them and guide them through the proceedings, as well as explain the situations that might be confusing for the young ones.

Rating:

2.5 stars

Pahuna

Genre: Drama

Actors: Ishika Gurung, Anmoul Limboo, Mahendra Bajgai

Director: Paakhi A. Tyrewala

Run time: 1hr 28 mins

During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a battalion of redcoats from the East India Company Army are outnumbered and trapped in a cave in a remote Indian village. Their commanding officer Lt. Col John Lynedoch (Richard Dillane), a fanatic believer in black magic, summons the power of Betaal, and tragedy strikes. He turns into a zombie, attacking and infecting his own soldiers till the villagers find a way to contain the army inside the cave itself.

Fast-forward to present day: a team of Indian soldiers called the ‘Baaz Squad’—an elite unit of the fictional Counter Insurgency Police Department (CIPD)—under the command of their leader Commandant Tyagi (Suchitra Pillai) and Commandant Vikram Sirohi (Vineet Kumar Singh) arrive at the same village, apparently to fight Naxalite rebels. Only Commandant Tyagi knows the true reason for their presence there. Bloodshed follows and the trapped soul of Col John Lynedoch that is under Betaal’s spell is accidentally released, unleashing havoc in the village.

Despite a strong production team, an opportunity to create a precedent, and a setting that could send shivers down the audience’s spine, the hype of “Betaal”, India’s first zombie horror web television series, died as soon as it was released. We couldn’t figure out why, so we watched it. We were so disappointed that zombie movies/series will never be the same for us anymore.

With Bollywood’s “king” Shahrukh Khan’s company Red Chillies Entertainment as one of the producers, expectations from the series, the first of its kind to be made in India, were definitely high. But writer/director Patrick Graham’s effort to give life to the undead, Indian-style, has turned into a cheap spoof of actual zombie movies.

We’ll not comment on the acting on this one because there seems to be no difference between the dead and the undead. Everyone appears in a sort of daze throughout the series, with no idea of what they are doing. Experienced actors fail to make impress and new faces don’t even solicit any attention.

Most appalling is sheer lack of seriousness evident in the production unit. Despite the backing of a major production house, the flaws in the series are uncountable. For instance, the soldiers of the supposed elite unit communicate through wireless headsets. That’s normal. But the wireless sets used in Betaal look like they were outsourced from one of the outsourcing companies (read: call centers) in India—so not pleasing on the eyes. There are so many of these eye-hurting details and jerks that a book on “Everything wrong with Betaal” could be written.

The efforts to Indianize the undead scores yet another own goal: The zombies in Betaal can be warded off by a mixture of salt, turmeric and ashes! The only thing remaining was to add a bit of “gau mutra” to the mix and the credit for the script could have been given to the infamous “Go Corona Go” singing state minister of India.

Without a single scene that could be called scary or at least exciting, the series never escapes its lethargic mode. The zombies here are a product of bad prosthetic work and pale in comparison even to the demons featured in ‘Ramayana’, the 1987 Indian TV series. Actually, the ’87 ghosts and demons were a lot more convincing than the zombies in Betaal. There’s also a crafty allusion to the mythical  “Vikram-Betaal” characters from Indian literature, but all creative efforts are lost in the chaotic dissonance of the series.

Luckily, it’s only a four-part series, with 44-49 minute episodes. The final episode hints at Season 2 but, surely, that ain’t happening.

Who should watch it?

If you’ve seen zombie movies like “Night of the Living Dead,” “Train to Busan” or even “World War Z”, you’ll regret Betaal. We recommend you give it miss, or just fast-forward through the first episode if you’re very curious.

Betaal

Rating: 1 star

Genre: Horror

Director: Patrick Graham

Actors: Richard Dillane, Suchitra Pillai, Vineet Kumar Singh

Run time: 3hrs (approx.)

I find war stories horrifying. They always send a shiver down my spine, even if they’re fiction. I guess that’s because you know something similar has probably happened somewhere and continues to happen across borders even today. Real-life accounts are worse because someone has actually suffered and you can’t fathom how humans can be so cruel to inflict unimaginable pain on others.

‘The Librarian of Auschwitz’ by Antonio Iturbe is based on the experiences of Czech teen Edita (Dita) Kraus who was a prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Though Iturbe interviewed Dita to write the novel, the book is actually a fictionalized account of real-life events.

Dita and her parents led a privileged life in Prague—her father was a reputed lawyer—before being taken to Auschwitz and then to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Besides narrating Dita’s experiences at the camp, Iturbe also richly imagines the lives of those around her while building a narrative that stays as close as possible to real instances.

When she was 14, Dita had one of the most dangerous jobs in the camp. She was to look after the eight books that prisoners had smuggled into Auschwitz. Books were forbidden—anyone found in the possession of one would be executed—and these books were used at the secret school started by prisoners for the children of Block 31.

Dita loves books, and takes her duty as librarian seriously. She’s forever mending torn pages and checking on those who are have borrowed the books to see if they are taking proper care of them during “school hours”. Dita also doesn’t hesitate to take risks. From sewing deep pockets in her clothes to hide books to disguising herself as a man to visit her ailing father to assuming her mother’s identity to spare her from carrying a corpse, Dita shows immense courage despite being acutely aware that death is just one wrong move away.

The violence in graphic. It hurts to read. People are dragged to gas chambers, already stuffed with dead bodies. They are beaten and starved—a lone piece of carrot in their soup is considered a luxury. And there is the ever-looming threat of becoming one of Dr Mengele’s lab rats. He is notorious for cutting up people without anesthesia, when not conducting life-threating experiments on them.

However, aside from the difficult content, reading the book is fairly easy. The words just flow and the stories seem to merge. No one is made to seem unnecessarily heroic. Holocaust sufferers and survivors are all heroes in their own rights and it is this fact that shines through in The Librarian of Auschwitz.

This is an important story not only because it’s about the power of hope in the gravest of situations but also because you realize the cost of war just isn’t worth it.