The Self in Our Times - Softcover

Farhan Shaikh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9392830033 ISBN 13: 9789392830037

Publisher: APK Publishers, 2021

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The Self in Our Times is a collection of seven independent stories that collectively attempts to explore and understand several facets of human condition in the modern epoch of 21st century. Through these narratives, the author has unraveled some defining events of contemporary world and pursued a personal discovery of the universal in the local. Each story portrays a diversity of cultures, worldviews and relationships that coexists in this fascinating and complex world.

The book assembles stories from vastly different contexts, including indigenous cultures and traditional arts of Asia, urban cities of India, small towns of North America, and the migratory lives of Horn of Africa. Through the evolving relationship between characters belonging to different worlds, these stories meditate on the meaning of love, home and human freedom.

1. Birds Wake Me Up: Deeply inspired by writings of Helen McDonald, the tale follows a young boy and his poignant relationship with birds, as he navigates adulthood, loss of home and the essence of living in an ever changing world.

2. A Movement Artist: Unravelling both eastern and western forms of dance, a young girl seeks personal identity and artistic fulfilment while her teacher suffers from a physical and mental breakdown.

3. Controller of Chaos: Mr Bhatkhande is a traffic constable who has been regularly monitoring roads at a popular spot of the Mumbai suburban region for over a decade. Over the course of a single day during the outbreak of COVID19, Bhatkhande encounters a self-reliant transgender who challenges his notion of life as they wade through the ironically quiet streets of a bustling city to leave behind a life accustomed to chaos.

4. She was a Maiko: Otis, a wealthy German businessman, pursues a trip to Japan and gets involved with a teenage hostess whose performance and mysterious past offers him an opportunity to discover his own quivering sanity and a repressed capacity to love.

5. Your Orange Thread: Post a rift in marriage and announcement of the Brexit, a British photographer pursues making a passionate documentary in Lucknow
and discovers her unique subject in a migrant artisan from Himachal Pradesh who is skilled yet distant from the timeless craft of his home.

6. I Live in a Nourishing, Cold Desert: A community of nomadic shepherds undertake a grueling migration journey to survive the increasingly cold winters, while two strangers contemplate on the beauty and meaning of stars through a common telescope. Revolving around the lives of an insomniac astrophysicist, a rising ice hockey player and a young shepherd, the story explores shifting worldviews and a converging vision of home in the silent highlands of Ladakh that leads to nowhere but itself.

7. Sheltered Mirage: Having experienced a life of poverty and exploitation since birth, a displaced woman confronts the joy and burden of motherhood while searching a mirage of hope for her twin toddlers in the troubled region of Somalia.

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