Hyderabad: Sukhbir Singh’s book is a hefty collection of five immensely readable short stories concerning the demonic afflictions of corona pandemic on people’s personal and social lives. Each story depicts a man or a woman thrown on the throes of the pandemic for some reason or the other. The situation initially seems to overwhelm the […]
Hyderabad: Sukhbir Singh’s book is a hefty collection of five immensely readable short stories concerning the demonic afflictions of corona pandemic on people’s personal and social lives.
Each story depicts a man or a woman thrown on the throes of the pandemic for some reason or the other. The situation initially seems to overwhelm the victims mentally and morally, but they feel an inner prompting, a voice of the hidden self within them that refuses to surrender.
The ordinary characters in the stories stand up and put up an extraordinary fight against the threats of the satanic disease and its ugly ramifications. They finally come out victorious by the dint of their indomitable will to live and unflinching courage to sustain amid the perilous situations.
The stories uphold the innate strength and sagacity of men and women which they know nothing about in normal circumstances. But, the hidden primal resources are very much there within each living creature and they manifest with full vigour in the life threatening circumstances.
Mutual love, care, and cooperation facilitate the easy arousal of this latent potency and ingenuity. There are examples galore on record from the earlier calamities such as the Holocaust, AIDS, and Wars wherein men and women from the common stock displayed exemplary courage and strength amidst the deadly dance of death and came out unscathed with their sanity and morality intact.
The collection has been appropriately dedicated to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who led the nation from the front during the fight against the corona pandemic and the corona warriors who laid down their precious lives so that their countrymen could live. The author deserves commendation for his generous dedication to the most deserving persons in the existing circumstances.
The first story ‘Corona Cola’ depicts a young couple, Raj and Ranu, reeling under the psychotic fear of the pandemic in the initial stages of its outbreak. They apprehend an early death due to the corona infection like many others all over the world. Both sustain with the help of mutual love and care keeping in view the Hindu philosophy of ‘karmic’ preordination. Saved by the corona patients in a road accident while returning from the test centre and later informed by the doctor about Ranu’s pregnancy, the husband and wife happily return home and live peacefully thereafter, sending out a message through their perseverance that the secret of survival amid a calamity is to sympathetically help others live through it.
The next story, ‘Corona Yama’, delineates a dialogue between an ordinary religious school teacher Bhanu and Corona Yama in a fantasy. The dialogue is more or less a travesty of the discourse on yoga between Lord Krishna and his disciple Arjuna in the ‘Bhagavad Gita’. The Corona Yama, a nephew of Yama in the Yama Loka or abode of death, appears before the teacher in his fearsome form when the latter is alone in his house.
The Corona Yama summons Bhanu to come with him to the Yama Loka for he had exhausted his life span. Bhanu refuses to comply and a dialogue concerning life versus death ensues between the two. Corona Yama argues in favour of death to escape the woeful life in this temporal world. Contrarily, Bhanu asserts in favour of the worldly life, despite all its pain and suffering. Finally, Bhanu outwits the Corona Yama and smartly counterfoils his death warrant, conveying the message that life is stronger than death.
The third story, ‘Corona Baba’, sketches the struggle of Rajo, a loyal and dignified Punjabi woman, following her husband’s desertion on the false suspicion of infidelity and subsequently his premature escape from a quarantine centre. Her chastity, sense of honour, and tenacity bear fruits and her husband returns freed from the false charge of murder and wrong suspicion of infidelity against his loyal wife. The story conveys that the truth is great but greater is the truthful living.
The next story, once again, portrays the ordeal of Sulatha, a noble and chaste woman from Kerala, after her drunken husband Rocky compels her to walk out of their house. Sulatha takes shelter in a Durga temple and stays there under the tender care of the kind priest and his wife. While staying there, she develops intense infatuation with the priest’s only son Kartikeyan who, as per the subsequent revelation of a mystic, was her son in the earlier life.
She endures the grief and pain valiantly to assert her honesty and finally re-joins her regretful and reformed husband after her loving care cures him of the corona infection. They live happily ever after.
In the last story, ‘Corona Queen’, Rani endures much shame and ignominy in her native village following her father’s and grandmother’s deaths. Following a revelation in her dream, she joins a band of ‘sadhvis’ (nuns) going to Banaras and during the pilgrimage pairs up with a young ‘sadhvi’ who was, as per the revelation, her husband in the earlier life. It apparently appears to be a lesbian liaison but the later emergence of the truth surprises everyone.
Having sneaked out of a quarantine centre, the ‘sadhvi’ reaches her hometown where her true identity as the Prince of Rajgarh state stands revealed. He subsequently marries Rani amid royal pomp and show and trains her in the use of the war weaponry. The jealous king of the neighbouring state Vishalgarh attacks Rajgarh and takes the King and the Prince as the prisoners of war.
Rani wages the final battle with a few remaining soldiers and defeats the Vishalgarh in a fierce fight. She releases the King and the Prince and returns to the Palace amid music, mirth, songs, dance and a rousing reception by the Palace dignitaries of Rajgarh. The King anoints her as the Queen of Rajgarh as a reward for her valour and victory. The Prince supports her as Home Minister of the state. Rani rules the two states of Rajgarh and Vishalgarh efficiently for decades and finally retires with the Prince to a monastery in the Himalayas after passing on the crown to her son.
The stories both individually and collectively send out a message to the vulnerable people not to give in but to fight heroically in the face of the deadly conditions. The victory will be ultimately yours in life as well as in death.
Dr K Venkat Reddy
(The writer is a Professor at The English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.)
Title: Corona Cola and Other Stories
Author: Sukhbir Singh
Publisher: Notion Press, 2022
Pages: 184
Price: Rs 190