{"id":343917,"date":"2023-06-01T00:38:17","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T06:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=343917"},"modified":"2023-06-02T00:46:32","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T06:16:32","slug":"diversity-in-terms-of-characters-locales-striking-in-these-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/diversity-in-terms-of-characters-locales-striking-in-these-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversity in terms of characters, locales striking in these stories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The stories in \u2018A String of Broken Dreams – Fifty\u00a0 Short\u00a0 Stories\u2019,\u00a0 authored by Lucknow-based writer Syed Rizwan are as concise as they could possibly be. These are straight to the point, not complicated but easy to absorb and read. Words and phrases and sentences flow along\u2026rather too effortlessly. Letting nothing really come in between, neither the passage of time nor the expanse of days and months and years.\u00a0 A book review by Humra Quraishi<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very  first and foremost aspect that  hit  me about this recently  launched book, is the  fact that these  fifty  short stories  have  been written in 30 days!  Also, they are as concise as they could possibly be. Some contained in a page whilst several others extending somewhat, to a couple of pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what prompted the Lucknow-based writer Syed Rizwan to come up with these short stories. Not to overlook the fact that his earlier books are primarily non-fictions. To mention the titles of some of his earlier published books –Survivors of a Mutiny 1 &11, Regarding Lucknow,The Taming of  Islamophobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why these short stories and that too fifty of them, written as briskly as possible? And this is what Rizwan details in the Preface to this book, \u201cAbout a month back, I wrote a short story that fit within a page. That pleased me. So I sat down to write a bunch of such stories. In the process, I learnt short stories bring out  the  specialness of  common things using the  minimum of  words\u2026these  stories  are  of  common people for  the  common people written by  a  common man.\u201d  He also adds, \u201cThe good thing about short stories is they are not strenuous; they end before the weather or the mood changes. Having said that, they can change the mood from sombre to sonorous and solemn to scintillating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as I read these fifty short stories, the diversity in terms of the characters and locales and settings and themes did impress.  Together with that, these stories are straight to the point. Nah, not complicated but easy to absorb and read. Words and phrases and sentences flow along\u2026rather too effortlessly. Letting nothing really come in between, neither the passage of time nor the expanse of days and months and years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, when I was writing the foreword to this book, nostalgia tightened its hold. Taking me back to the  Jhansi  of the  1960s, when Rizwan\u2019s  father was posted as the district magistrate of  Jhansi and my  father was also posted there as one of  the engineers supervising the construction of the upcoming dams in  and around  Jhansi. Our families were close and met rather regularly but then  things changed with their passing away. Death of our parents relayed an end of an era\u2026of those good old days when <\/a>simplicity and sincerity held sway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Title of the book- A String of Broken Dreams – Fifty  Short  Stories <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author \u2013 Syed Rizwan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher \u2013Petrichor Publications<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pages  –  138<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price \u2013 Rs 275<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The stories in \u2018A String of Broken Dreams – Fifty\u00a0 Short\u00a0 Stories\u2019,\u00a0 authored by Lucknow-based writer Syed Rizwan are as concise as they could possibly be. These are straight to the point, not complicated but easy to absorb and read. Words and phrases and sentences flow along\u2026rather too effortlessly. Letting nothing really come in between, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343924,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[650,23,2205],"tags":[16795,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343925,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343917\/revisions\/343925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/343924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}