Plain Tales from the Edge

It’s on the choking streets of Delhi that Rani the elephant and her mahout make their slow way out. The chaotic traffic leaves the elephant upset and smashing a Maruti. Shweta, an executive trapped in the jam, misses a crucial office meeting and is reprimanded publicly by her boss. As she leaves, the parking lot attendant asks her to pay. Irritated, she claims she already has and having once said it, it’s difficult to backtrack. It’s a meaningless lie, kept alive by an irrational ego. For Kishore, the attendant it lives on in more horrible consequences. Beaten up by the police, robbed by them of his money, he pleads with the ‘seth’ who runs the parking lot to give him time to return it. The forgiving seth then takes him home and molests him.

As a bruised and bundled Kishore is thrown out on the deserted inky streets of Delhi, he is offered a lift by Rani’s mahout, on his way home. ‘‘The elephant wrapped her trunk around Kishore’s waist and lifted him onto her back.’’ ‘‘Together the three of them left the streets of New Delhi behind.’’ A series of unconnected events are linked as its initiator and its final consequence together make a long day’s last journey.

There is a certain brooding magic in this tale. The common occurrences of city life — an elephant, that symbol of ancient India, standing at a red light along with a Maruti, the heralder of new India; endless quibbling with parking lot boys, all take on a frightening unsettling dust.

‘‘The Cook’’, set in Paris, is again a disturbing story of what happens when the mind and memory desert. Marcello, a chef is losing his skill but instead thinks it’s his wife and daughter who are conspiring to take over from him. At the end of an elaborate wedding feast that he has prepared, he waits for appreciation. He watches the groom’s face as he takes his first mouthful only to find distaste written on it. Marcello unties his apron and steps out. ‘‘What had gone wrong? What had betrayed him?’’ There is no answer.

‘‘The Sleepers’’ is about communal tension in small town South India that has a ghastly end.

But Jha attempts too many times in this collection to get a twist to her stories. In some it works, in others it ends up looking trite. One such contrived ending is “Hope”, an account of the exchanges between two colleagues — Shailendra, an optimistic small town man, and Sheila, a cynical city slicker — who travel together every day to their newspaper office. At the end of the narrative Shailendra decides to propose to Sheila but before he can pop the question she tells him she has resigned and is getting married. There’s no thrill of surprise here, only a certain dullness.