सिमसिम
Old Basar Mal remembers his love and homeland that he lost in Sindh, Pakistan during the Partition. A young graduate gets into an imaginary relationship with a girl at a yellow window. The Mumbai land mafia is after Basar Mal and his library. A chatty book cover relates the plight of books. A silent Mangan’s ma washes and feeds a plastic doll she thinks is her son.
Poignantly written by Geet Chaturvedi, a major Hindi writer, and beautifully translated by Anita Gopalan, Simsim is a struggle between memory, imagination, and reality- an exquisitely crafted book that fuses the voices of remarkable yet relatable characters to weave a tale of seeking happiness, fulfilling passion, and reconciling with loss. Simsim is charming, and wonderfully original.
Authors : Geet ChaturvediOriginal Publisher : Hind YugmPublisher: Penguin Random House
Translators:
On most days, doddering Basar Mal fights damp, dust, the land mafia that threatens to destroy his library, and the ravages of age which continually efface memories of his beloved and his homeland. Meanwhile, his wife, for want of a child, adopts a doll and devotes the remainder of her days to its care. The unnamed student who walks by the library begins to imagine a young girl who appears at a specific window and vows to make her his beloved. He imagines their life together while escaping arguments with his father on how to build his career. The other prominent voice in the story is that of a book that talks about the politics of language and gender while revealing why book burnings have existed throughout history. (continues