3 Review(s)

Escape Velocity is an anthology of thirteen diverse contemporary short stories from India, woven around the extraordinary tales found in ordinary lives. Readers will resonate with these stories of life's many paradoxes that sometimes find happy resolutions, and sometimes can't be gotten rid of. There are stories of childhood, and lost innocence, of happy memories and dark secrets, of homecoming and alienation, of shrinking of the self and longing for freedom. In this geographically varied collection, settings ranging from a small town in Punjab to the metros of Delhi, Gurugram, and Kolkata. The action ranges across locales as intimate and immediate as the stream of consciousness narration of a character, to the external travails a city dweller couple face in trying to set down roots on the banks of the Brahmaputra. The language used is polished English prose, with rich shades of local intonations, be it the Kumaoni, Assamese, Punjabi or Japanese used by the protagonists in different stories. With warmth, intimate vulnerability and honesty the authors reveal rich inner lives of their characters - people like you and me - everyman, everywoman, in the fast changing milieu of past and present day urban India.