Book Review: Afsaane – A Collection of Short Stories by Ameya Bondre

Afsaane by Ameya Bondre is a riveting collection of 11 short stories. Each story has an aura of freshness while dealing with the life’s most common themes like love, lust, relationship, betrayal, social taboos, family melancholy, and so on. The great thing about this collection is that nothing sounds set in a premeditated environment.

The stories are with proper climax and hold a sense of intensity and unpredictability till the last line. Thus, for sure that most of the time readers must have felt as they are going through a novella.

In the beginning, stories are more focused about relationship status, unspoken distance, mutual understanding gone sour, family caretaking, divorce situation, and so on. As the collection chugs ahead, different shades of life is being portrayed finely and precisely. But most of the stories about love are silent in their stance, for instance that one where the guy presents a handwritten diary of musical notes to her lover on the occasion of her wedding. The story set in the rural backdrop about malnutrition of children nudges us to the grim realities of life that there are some people that struggle even for a decent dose of meal.

It’s clear that the stories presented in the collection are of societal layers that the author must have seen closely or observed the details first hand. Nearly all stories present a classic vignette about life and bring out as what churns beneath a heart that is caught amidst a farrago of feelings. There is a fascinating urge to understand life and its gloom and glory. The book certainly strikes a chord with people who like to live to the fullest with a touch of reality. Ameya has written the stories in his own unique style; the way he developed characters and brought them in the light of conflict is done superbly. This collection of short stories can be read anytime and in any order.

The title, though in Urdu, is apt as per the inside content. Ameya has done a wonderful job of describing life events with a fine touch of subtlety while exploring the depth of human relations and the complexity of human affairs. It’s a short read and can be completed in a single day.

Get the book from Amazon.

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