THERE is a tinge of the unexpected in these short stories. But unlike most, Manjula Padmanabhan doesn’t try too hard for that twist in the tale. Or perhaps she tries hard enough to make them seem effortless. She takes the ordinary, stretches it, sometimes get it back and sometimes takes it further. Kleptomania is the only one in this collection of 10 that’s not been published earlier. And it’s the one where the jolt at the end is quite hard. A dinner party complete with earnest arguments over literary questions — in this case writing — has an end that is Roald Dahl in its suddenness, only much nastier.In Kleptomania, a character describes the ways in which writers ‘‘plunder the lives of those around’’ them in pursuit of their art. In her introduction, Padmanabhan says it’s certainly true of her. ‘‘Ultimately in various disguises and shadowy references, it is my family, my friends and the locales in which I have lived or grown up in, that appear repeatedly in what I write.’’ Morning Glory in East-of-Kailash is the one story where Padmanabhan’s personal experiences and acquaintances are least disguised. It’s about the author’s time in Delhi, spent in a house living with two gay men, their adopted son, a transvestite cook and two spaniels. Science fiction and futuristic forays return in this collection but the sting of Harvest is missing. The ideas, though, are interesting, a Gandhi toxin used by a company to make rival companies free of aggressive traits the most so. But even in the fantastical, the reality is never missing. Or maybe it’s the outrageous texture of our reality that lends itself so beautifully to fantastical fiction. In 2099 the ‘‘Muslims, Hindus and minorities each had vast sectors of the planet to themselves, but nevertheless fought vicious battles for space, food, water and political advantage. Cannibalism was the universally accepted social norm everywhere, as there were no local sources of protein. It was delicately referred to as ‘recycling’.’’ The murder mystery The Body in the Backyard surprisingly is less tingling than expected, given the inherent thrill of the subject. A hip young woman, a bureaucrat father, a mercurial boyfriend and a dead cook are the characters in this whodunnit. Even in the fantastic, the reality is never missing. Maybe it’s the outrageous texture of reality that lends itself to the fantasticThe Girl Who Could Make People Naked starts with another harmless social evening. Gautam accompanies his family to a party thrown by his sister’s fiance and his family. A meeting with Bahaar metamorphoses a humdrum scenario into a dizzy evening where he first becomes an ant, seeing the show from the ceiling. Bahaar has the power to make people naked and she does it here. A roomful of guests and waiters are frozen in naked embarrassment until Gautam breaks the spell, deciding to stay on with mundane normality than go along with such extravagant power plays. An Upbeat Story is a story written for a glamourous women’s magazine. “Something upbeat’’ was Padmanabhan’s brief. So she set out to write a happy story of a woman with a disability and a man with Down’s Syndrome. An Upbeat Story is written as emails sent back and forth between the author and a magazine editor reluctant to accept disability as suitable fare for readers prepared for nothing but unblemished beauty. A few emails later the persuasion works, the editor relents and another identity is unmasked. The stories in the collection are an enjoyable read, some for the ideas, some for themselves.
