Like a delicious curry | Review of Bulbul Sharma’s ‘Mayadevi’s London Yatra’

Do I start with the stories I have read before or dive into the new ones? This was my dilemma when faced with Bulbul Sharma’s Mayadevi’s London Yatra: New and Selected Stories.

Since the first — ‘Fish Curry Memories’ — was new, I dove right in. Paraphrased, the story is rather bald: an elderly woman tricked into housekeeping for her nephew in a foreign land and her longing for home. But Sharma throws in various ingredients — broken relationships, food, resilience, courage, fear — to serve up a tale as delicious as the curry Leela dishes out before finally making her escape. To savour Sharma’s writing, read the passage in ‘Food to Die For’, on how the narrator’s grandmother and her sidekick begin cooking for a religious ceremony. There is an almost tactile nature to her words, as if you can reach out and touch the various items being prepared.

Completely different is ‘The Child Thief’. A young girl, trained from babyhood to help her father steal, begins to work in her brother’s gang. But made uncomfortable by his boss, she devises a novel way to get rid of the man. In total contrast is ‘Roses for my Love’. On his 50^th wedding anniversary, Mr. Sen recalls how he got married and drifted apart from his wife. But, even as he realises that there is love in the relationship, he gets some bad news.

Sharma’s writing is simple but powerful and poignant. “Like two boxing champions, trapped in a ring...,” she writes of a conservative mother-in-law and her foreign daughter-in-law sizing each other up. Immediately, you get the picture of wary advances and tactical retreats before punches are thrown. Another striking sentence comes from ‘In Possession’, a story of a young man building a relationship with the family he serves: “He looked after them as possessively as a she-wolf with cubs...” The only discordant note was the repetition of 10 pages in the middle of one story breaking the flow.

A great introduction to Sharma’s work, the book also offers a tantalising glimpse into a forthcoming novel. Here’s looking forward to more from a master storyteller.

krithika.r@thehindu.co.in