“This collection will bring you close to your city and might give you a different perspective to look for more interesting stories on an otherwise seemingly mundane day.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
One expects stories of the military from that Faujpur title, stories of army brats or legends but Gaurav Bajpai’s stories are just by the way stories of ordinary people, folk you might run into in any city – one that he has christened Faujpur. The 11 stories focus on urban life, encounters on trains, in bookshops, a hospital, a hotel, a boutique owner’s love story and the angst of an ageing film actress. They are situational stories since the locations add importance to the narrative – places where people pass each other like ships in the night, though some berth in the places where they pass and find a kind of fulfilment.
These are stories that include ego clashes, alcohol and disappointment, firmly anchored in the reality of everyday life with enough occasional touches of happiness to lift them out of the mundane. For instance, an encounter with a dashing hotelier changes an unhappy Chinese translator’s life, or confusion with screening machines transforms a backwater family’s first airplane flight.
What the book required was better editing and more carefully chosen language, but the stories are, as the author says in his foreword, ‘relatable’ with a kind of folk wisdom of their own.
Reviewed by:
Anjana Basu
Added 21st April 2021
