Chot

These stories by the renowned and beloved storyteller Chandan Pandey expose this rapidly changing world and the equations of human, familial, and social relationships with ruthless neutrality. The pain expressed in the collections title story, Chot, is felt in different forms throughout the seven stories included in the collection. Its a pain that each one of us is either experiencing or inflicting. Aniruddh in Chot, who has devised a playful way to rise above the monotony of the office and hurt his authoritarian superiors, ultimately succeeds in his goal, but at the cost of his job. The protagonist of Doob Ki Varnamala hides behind his injury to escape from street bullies and his creditors who were planning to collect interest by amputating his leg. The story Ganth also ends with a pain, aiming to break the inner inertia of the urban middle class. The wound of Jangi Pandey in Pitru Paksha is perhaps the most profound. This story masterfully captures the decisive shift in caste equations in Indian society. Chandan Pandeys ability to innovate language and expand its communicativeness sentence by sentence is evident throughout all of his stories. Shubhamana Ka Shav is a profoundly powerful story in this regard; its subject matter is so horrific that it sends shivers down your spine. Having already proven his mettle with novels like Vaidhanik Galp and Kirtigan and several extraordinary stories, this collection by Chandan Pandey will surely meet the expectations of his readers.