What comes as something of a relief is that none of the ten stories in Kleptomania, feature the angst and anguish of Indian womanhood…. Instead, we have mostly urban and savvy women like the author herself.

Short stories in different hues, a harrowing 'life behind the veil' tale, an exploration of emotional bonds between people…Sherna Gandhy analyses the latest reads in the market

A NEAT TURN OF PHRASE

There is one thing that can be said with certainty about Manjula Padmanabhan: there is nothing clichéd about the characters or themes of the 10 short stories in one of her recent works, Kleptomania. Just as her cartoon strip, that used to appear in The Sunday Observer in the '80s, was unlike any Indian cartoon strip, not least because it had a young female, the Suki, as the central character. But to be different is not a virtue in itself, and while Padmanabhan can pull it off in some stories, others are not quite so successful.

What comes as something of a relief is that none of the ten stories feature the angst and anguish of Indian womanhood (except perhaps for Farida in Beads), a theme that far too many Indian women writers are addicted to. Instead, we have mostly urban and savvy women like the author herself in the semi-fictional Morning Glory in East of Kailash, where her bizarre household consists of two gays, their adopted son, three dogs and a hijra cook. Or society hostess, Sheila in Kleptomania, who may be anguished that her 15-year-old son has been inducted into sex by one of her male guests in the middle of her dinner party, but who isn't quite powerless. In Betrayal, Maya has to undergo an abortion but she is not the one who ends up the victim.

Padmanabhan is also bold enough to experiment with different genres of fiction. So, there are three science fiction stories that are entirely forgettable, and one detective story, which is promising. There's a funny story that consists of email messages between a writer and her editor, during which the writer tries to convince the editor that her story about a woman cripple and a man with Down's Syndrome will definitely interest the magazine's upmarket readers who "look at reality through diamond-tinted contact lenses". Surprisingly, as the tale unfolds, the writer's prediction comes true. Readers of Verve will recognise the story that first appeared in these pages as an exclusive contribution.

Manjula Padmanabhan is an acquired taste. One feels her sensibility is too individualistic and her wit too ironic to appeal to a wide audience. But there's a neat turn of phrase and a sense of the absurd that makes at least some of these stories an entertaining read.

CONTROLLED NARRATION

Samina Ali's debut novel, Madras On Rainy Days, is the classic 'life behind the veil' story. It piles harrowing experience on harrowing experience as its young female protagonist negotiates the dangerous waters of matrimony in a society that is medieval in its mindset even if it is situated in the 21st century.

Layla has grown up spending six months of the year sequestered in her mother's home in Hyderabad's old Muslim quarter, and six months in Minneapolis in the USA, where her now divorced parents had emigrated when she was a child. How she managed to finish school in this manner is anybody's guess, but there was to be no college graduation and instead she is forced into a traditional arranged marriage to a man she does not know.

To avoid this fate, all that this confused American desi can think of doing is having a brief fling with an American, which ended in her getting pregnant. This wasn't as big a disaster as might be imagined because her husband, Saleem, is nursing a dark secret of his own. So Layla is trapped in a marriage that is no marriage until, in some convoluted way, a brutal communal riot that kills her dearly loved cousin, frees her.

The details, like the customs, habits and traditions of this highly sequestered Muslim society where alims are used to scare away demons, where women are enveloped in the chador and where the word of men is law and that of women unheard, is convincingly narrated. But it is difficult to get a grip on the characters.

Layla, for instance, reeks of inconsistencies. She thinks like an 'outsider', but submits willingly to the of a traditional society. This could be the classic dilemma of anyone raised in two very different cultures, but somehow it appears more like flawed characterisation. Sameer, the man Layla marries, is even more difficult to get a hold on, sometimes appearing to be sensitive and intelligent, at other times weak and even hysterical. The novel itself takes on a slightly hysterical note as drama piles up on drama.

For all that, though, the story is well told, the language evocative and controlled even when highly emotional events like the butchery and savagery of communal killings are being described. What comes through clearly is how little power, people, women in particular, have over their own lives.

EXPLORING CULTURES AND EMOTIONS

Author, Jaishree Misra's third novel, Afterwards, also see-saws between two places and cultures - Trivandrum and London - but this is a story about the emotional bonds (or lack of them) between people rather than about cultural differences.

Most of the story is told after Maya's death in an accident, as a devastated Rahul tries to hold his life together and decide little Anjali's future. Misra is good at conveying the sense of loss that pervades the novel and that finally leads to the beginning of the healing process.

The book has an appealing hero in Rahul, who is most women's idea of what a man should be - sensitive, caring, intelligent. This is a novel about decent, caring people. Even Maya's husband is revealed to be a decent man, and it is through her mother who had once disowned her, that the healing process starts. This may not be fashionable at a time when a novel about the seamy side of gay London wins a literary prize but it makes for a very readable book.

AN INSIGHTFUL ANALYSIS

Over the years, a woman has metamorphosed from 'Who, me?' to 'I, me, myself…'. The modern-day Eve is more ambitious, focussed and independent than her sisters of a decade or two ago, a metamorphosis witnessed not just in society but in the creative arts as well. Eve-olution, as the name suggests, looks at the changing face of the Indian woman on the Hindi screen.

The analysis, published by the integrated marketing communications agency, Euro RSCG India, naturally, explores her evolving needs and feelings from the marketing point of view. Taking a look at her presence in movies down the years, for the sake of convenience, the women are divided into broad categories like Mother India, Sati Savitri, the Wallflower and the Bold Digger. Worth a read for an overview of different feminine avatars.

SPEAKING PICTURES

Normally books of photographs are dismissed as glossy, coffee table accessories. But photographer and award-winning screenwriter, Sooni Taraporevala's second edition on her community is a riveting portrayal of a vibrant and alive section of Indian society. Parsis - The Zoroastrians of India, A Photographic Journey has text that is as arresting as its lovingly captured images. A laudable effort from Taraporevala, who has successfully encapsuled the faces, voices, and unique culture of the Parsis.