|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Mad Tibetan: Stories
from Then and Now
In her debut anthology, words make love with images and acquire a life of their own and simply but surely she makes you a part of her characters. Characters that come from everyday life but with their human foibles and quirkiness these are as endearing as credible. Slice of reality it sure is yet touched by surrealism that is once again believable and enchanting. So in the story The Morning After she presents a wonderful psyche of human mind that not only learns to forgive and forget but finds a new way of life from the embers of a bitter past. Shades of Erich Segals’s Man, Woman and Child`85 well this one goes beyond and impresses with life’s ironies and dilemmas. In Bombay Central life reveals itself in its grey shades, beyond moral judgements and the beauty of the human bond, of love and emotion surfaces in ample measure.
In a collection where several stories remain with you long after you have put away the book, the need to include part-memoir part-stories might be debatable. Indeed, in many a story Deepti the actor emerges as a character herself. In recounting these personal interfaces with life, Deepti succeeds in many like The Mad Tibetan that clearly is a fallout of her journey as a photographer. Then Thulli has all the elements of story telling and leaves you astounded as well as awestruck with a chilling yet humane peep into the world of prostitutes. Trespassing in the red-light area, which Deepti once dared to venture into, to hone her reel role Thulli is riveting as well as profound. In the sleazy world of flesh trade, human spirit remains indomitable and forms the crux of the storyline. Deepti distils human complexities remarkably in this one. But the same can’t be said of the one revolving around her meeting with Balraj Sahni when she was a nine-year old girl. Nevertheless, the collection is not only immensely readable but insightful, allowing the reader to delve deep into the psychological inflections of human behaviour. Without a doubt, Deepti shows great promise as a raconteur.
|
THE world knows her as a
talented actor.... those who have kept tabs on her also are aware that
she is a poet of considerable mettle. But the acclaimed actor as a story
teller? Well, as she turned one with her first collection of short
stories titled The Mad Tibetan, the result is as impacting as her tryst
with celluloid. Intense yet simple, real yet incredible, understated and
powerful, her worldview is simply breathtaking. Like one of her
paintings that adorns the jacket of the book, it captures many subtle
shades of life, its vicissitudes, twists and turns and takes you to the
realm naked eye can’t quite see.
What is engaging about her
stories is how simple human emotions not only tug at your heart-strings
but triumph against all odds. In Birds, she word-paints the frenzy of
birds having lost their off-spring with as much passion as the turmoil
in the mind of the protagonist who has inadvertently sounded the
death-knell of vulnerable creatures. Beautifully and dramatically, she
contrasts the human pursuit for a better home with loss of abode of god’s
other species. Same momentum of drama can be felt in the second story
Sisters as well as in Premonition that Deepti acknowledges was motivated
by a friend’s recall of his first love. Deepti’s felicity, however,
lies in how she transforms it into an engaging account of a man pursuing
a romantic interest at one level and warding off his fears of an
accident at another.