Achchha Aadami

Who is the best person around us today? Who is the one who comes to you smiling the most, shakes hands with you, inquires about your well-being, becomes closer to you than your own people, who has the cure and solution to all your doubts, troubles, and confusions? Who is the one who tells you even those things about yourself that you dont know? Who is the one who constantly researches your desires, wishes, lusts, and cravings, who satisfies your cravings even before you want them? The answer to all these questions is onethe market, whose various forms Pankaj Mitra has explored in several stories of this new collection. The market needs more space and land to expand every day. To do this, it tempts us, provokes our unfulfilled desires, tries to win us over. And even then, if it doesnt see its desires fulfilled, it simply seizes your land like a tycoon, building a mall there, supported by everyone in society except a few like the good mans professoreven their own wives and children. It comes from everywhere, offering you solutions to every problem in your life, an answer to every question, a convenience, an app for every difficulty. It simply doesnt answer one basic question: what if you dont have the money to buy the vast bundle of goods it carries around? And when you ask, youre shut out, sometimes missing, sometimes unnecessary. There are other questions he doesnt have answers to, but he exploits them effectively: our caste pride, political and social immoralities, bureaucratic turmoil, and various other forms of power. Pankaj Mitra also exposes these layers of our lives in these stories. He possesses a natural grasp of the psychology of rural society, along with a skill in capturing the ironies emerging from the unbalanced flow of development, all of which are well-revealed in these stories. His witty use of language, narrative flow, and ability to bring characters to life in their unique qualities make these stories especially readable, and their concerns collectible.