The Pukka Sahib and Other Stories

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In these short stories, the author holds the reader in thrall from the opening sentence leading him through convoluted corridors and depositing him on the threshold of some unforeseen mystery. The slow, deliberate accretion of details leaves the reader impatient for the inevitable climax, which provides both a sense of relief as also of disbelief. Drawing successfully upon his own experiences in the bizarre and often grotesque world of bureaucracy as much as from the solid everyday world of middle class India, the dominant impressionDas has tried to leave you with , is one of bemused irony. One meets here the pompous officer, the ingratiating peon, the obsequious section officer, the rustic youth who has moved to the city, the middle class professional who has migrated oversea and the strong emancipated woman who wears her feminism on her sleeve. A certain suavity, which is in sharp contrast to the provincial even parochial tone of much writing in regional languages, marks these stories. The art of understatement is part of the deliberate craftsmanship that has been assiduously adopted. The Pukka Sahib from which the collection gets its title represents the essential human condition. In my beginning is my end. In the Indian ethos, progress is circular rather than linear. Perhaps this is what the short stories, which seem to deny the possibility of progression, are all about.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR J.P. Das

Dr Jagannath Prasad Das is a well-known poet, playwright and fiction writer whose Puri Paintings continues to be a masterly volume on Orissan art. He has also co-authored with Professor Joanna Williams of University of California, Berkeley Palm-leaf Miniatures: The Art of Raghunath Prusti of Orissa. His other publications in English include First Person, Timescapes and Lovelines”collections of poems; Before Sunset, The Underdog and Sundardas”plays; The Magic Deer, The Forbidden Street and Dear Jester ” collections of stories. His plays have been translated into several Indian languages and staged in different parts of India. Before Sunset is considered a classic among modern Indian plays. Born in Orissa in 1936, Dr J P Das lives and works in Delhi.

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Bibliographic information

Title
The Pukka Sahib and Other Stories
Author
Edition
1st ed.
Publisher
ISBN
8172234287
Length
157p.
Subjects