Kissa Kotah

In a hectic life, the past fades into gray, while we yearn to remember ita picture of restlessness. The longing for color, taste, movement, and delicate connectionsthats all there is, a pull. A pull in a fast-paced life! The hope of the subtle veins of memories emerging. Then this book, Kissa Kotah, is meant to be held warmly close. Essential and precise. Its the unfinished life of our stories. Its like listening to life silently. Its like seeing three or four people within one. This isnt just a document of Rajesh Joshis childhood, college, or the formation of a literary personality, but the creativity of bringing back people, buildings, and events lost in rugged history. They are the breath of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, and before that, the Narsinghgarh princely state. Rare images of a joint family. The ethos of our grandfather, aunt, brothers, and father, which are so close to all of us. Our own. The intimacy of friends, the study of lost minds, and some names that have become chapters in politics, give us the rare experience of discovery in our own cities. This is wandering. This is thirst. From the Begum era to the Emergency era, this is an album of the diverse behaviors of people lost in history. The soundtrack is like a film. There is the sweetness of corn, mango, custard apple, and a bowl of cream. This unique prose by the renowned poet Rajesh Joshi, with its own rhythm, enters the garden we call a novel. Here we find fertile ground to plant our memories, our people, roads, buildings, and relationships. - Shashank.