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Book Review: The Six by Pratik Dey Sarkar

The Six by Pratik Dey Sarkar is an engaging book of short stories. It offers six stories of different timelines, of various human circumstances, and of independent backdrop. The book is poignant in exploring the human emotions under various circumstances. Some of the themes that dominate the collection are love, aspirations, fear, bravery, and so on.


The book is just 59 pages, except one story, other ones are of medium length. The first story Hawa-Tari is set in the medieval Maharashtra. Hawa-Tari is a name of the kite, which was flown by a girl named Hemanti. She defied the patriarchal rules of the society and flew a kite from a hidden place. Her kite flying skills were matchless and people had hardly any inkling about her. Her kite led to the discovery of enemies hiding in the forest. She was killed but did her job perfectly. From the Medieval Indian history, this was a good piece of literature.

The second story in the book is Happy Birthday, it is the longest story. This story may evoke an ocean of nostalgia for 90s kids. It is a love story of Proyas and Soi. They fell in love during their school time. They would meet at tuition center. Their love was strong but juvenile. In fact, the story says that love doesn’t stay the way it begins. This is a brilliant love story of two school goers. But little did they know that life doesn’t stay the same forever. They part. Will they meet again one day somewhere in future? If so, what will be their feelings for each other? Changed or same? The author tried to paint a picture of true love through this story. Read on to know the exact fate of these lovers?

The Namesake is a lovely discovery in the collection. It tells the tale of three ordinary persons who are the namesake of three famous persons – one is terrorist, another one is a cricketer, and the last one is a detective. This story clearly indicates that one’s name carries vibes of fate and much more. For instance, in this story, the tram driver’s name was Osama. He was never looked upon as a good person post the 9/11 attacks. He wasn’t at fault. It was his name destiny.

In each story, the author has put some conflicting situations that nudge its characters to take action and get into drama. By doing so the author perfectly searches for a gamut of emotions through his frail yet intriguing characters. It is a different type of collection. The language is lucid…but the twists and turns are totally unexpected. Pratik Dey Sarkar is a brilliant storyteller, if he comes up with a full-fledged novel, it is likely that he will get good amount of attention. The way Mr Sarkar weaved a tapestry of emotions tied to diverse human situations is something that not all short story writers can pull off. All in all, this is a nice book of short stories, if you love exploring independent stories, probably you should try this.

Buy from Amazon.

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