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An engineer by training, Vivek Shanbhag writes in Kannada. He has five short story collections, three novels, and two plays many of which have been adapted for the stage and one has been made into a short film as well. Ghachar Ghochar was translated by Srinath Perur, the author of the travelogue ‘It It’s Monday, It Must Be Madurai’. As far as translated works go, this is a good one to pick up. The language is smooth and you find yourself wondering how beautiful the actual text might be because the original is almost always better. 

I first chanced upon the translated version of Ghachar Ghochar at Sanu Ko Pustakalaya but I had to return the book before I could read it. Then since I didn’t renew my subscription at the library, choosing instead to buy books as it’s the one investment I truly believe in, I never got to read it. I finally found a copy at Bookverse in Civil Mall, Sundhara, and read it in a single sitting. The book is just a little over a 100 pages long and reads like a thriller. There’s so much happening that you don’t want to put it down. 

At its heart, the book is a simple story about a family’s changing lifestyle as they build a business and it brings them more money than they could have ever imagined. It’s the story of a single family but there are many characters that add different layers to the plot. You get to see the same story unfold from different perspectives. It’s not just a rags to riches story but a family drama that feels like something you would see in every other regular Asian home. 

On the surface, Ghachar Ghochar tells a story about a middle-class Indian family. But at its core, it examines shifting family dynamics, hierarchy, and the covert and overt ways in which patriarchy exerts itself. The father of the narrator is the only breadwinner and they lead a simple life. Then his uncle starts a business which becomes successful and overnight their fortunes change. They move into a bigger house from their ant-infested space and suddenly they don’t have to plan their purchases. Money brings many changes but the family still struggles to leave their past and old values behind.

Despite being so short, it’s a very layered work, one that forces you to think of the many facets of life and how the lives of family members are intricately woven and not everything is simple and straightforward. I really enjoyed it and the ending shocked me and moved me to think of things like class, gender, and the privileges we take for granted. It also, in many ways, felt like a commentary on how money often controls us, how it can both motivate and manipulate, and bring out the best and worst in us depending on what we let it do. 

Fiction

Ghachar Ghochar

Vivek Shanbhag

Translated from the Kannada by Srinath Perur

Published: 2015

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Pages: 117, Paperback

I recently bought a copy of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman after hearing many of my favorite BookTubers talk about it. It’s a short story about mental illness. A woman becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in a mansion she and her husband have rented to help her to recover from her ‘sadness’. The Vintage Classics edition I got has a total of 10 short stories by Gilman. There are other editions by Penguin, including the Penguin Little Black Classics edition, that has three stories or a completely different selection of stories by Gilman that includes The Yellow Wallpaper but not necessarily the stories that are in the collection I bought. 

But I recommend the Vintage Classic ‘Weird Girls’ edition because you get a complete feel of the author’s body of work. Gilman was born in 1860 and she was a journalist who wrote many works of fiction and non-fiction. She died by suicide–taking an overdose of chloroform–after being diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in 1932. Her work reflects her melancholy attitude towards life and is, at times, a little too bleak for my liking. But she was definitely an author ahead of her times, writing about what would have back then been radical ideas of change, resistance, and gender equality. Reading her stories today might feel commonplace, especially since mental health and gender issues are openly discussed, but we would do well to remember that these stories were written in the late 1800s when many of these ideas were far-fetched and even revolutionary.  

The Yellow Wallpaper dissects a woman’s descent into madness and her family’s role in it. The Rocking Chair is your average horror story as is The Giant Wisteria. Both of these are well written and executed but you feel like you have watched many such plots on different OTT platforms. I enjoyed a seemingly innocuous story about a housewife who goes on about her day without a free minute, catering to all the needs of her family without thinking about her own. This story made me dwell on how little attention we give to homemakers and their contribution in men’s successes in the professional arena. Challenging societal conventions on what it means to be a woman in a man’s world is another of Gilman’s stories, Mrs Elder’s Idea, where an aging woman who has always followed her husband’s orders finally decides to live life on her own terms. 

Every story in the collection I got from Pilgrims Book House in Jhamsikhel, Lalitpur, are ideas you are familiar with but don’t give much thought to on a daily basis. They shed light on mental illness, gender disparity, parenthood and its challenges, and many other issues. Gilman’s stories are a bit gothic and unsettling but the ideas presented in them make them worth your time. 

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Published: Originally published in 1891

Publisher: Vintage Classics (Weird Girls edition)

Pages: 127, Paperback

‘Small Boat’ by Vincent Delecroix is based on a real incident that happened in November 2021. An inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the Channel causing the death of 27 people on board. The Channel is a major but dangerous route for migrants who attempt to cross it on small boats. Besides drowning, many people are crushed or asphyxiated as it unfortunately happens on small boats that are cramped with people. But the truth remains that migrants still regularly try to cross the channel to make it to the UK from France. Recently on May 3 this year, two women from Sudan lost their lives when the boat carrying them wouldn’t start.

Rescue attempts usually happen from both the French and the British sides. But in November 2021, the French authorities told the migrants they were in British waters and that they had to call them for rescue. By the time help arrived, all but two migrants had died. The narrator of Small Boat is the woman who took the calls. It’s a fictional account of what might have transpired that night and if and why the responder should be held accountable when nations and their policies have repeatedly failed people looking for refuge.

Small Boat is a compelling novel that raises the possibility that all of us, in our own ways, are complicit in the sufferings of migrants. Some parts of the story were drawn from public records but most are the author’s imagination of what might have been on the mind of the coastguard on duty that night. In the opening scene of the novel, she’s being interrogated by a woman who resembles her in her ways. She has her shoulders pulled back and the same coat rack stance as the narrator. Even her hair is up in a tight ponytail in what is a striking resemblance to the narrator. But it becomes evident that the interrogator questions the integrity of the rescue operator and believes she failed to help those in need during distressing times. 

The narrator, however, refuses to take the blame. She was, after all, just doing her job. Her job as a rescue operator demands that she have neither convictions nor conscience. She can’t discriminate and choose who to save. But the world watching or in this case hearing her tell migrants that she didn’t ask them to leave in the first place thinks otherwise and it’s her head on the line. Over the course of the next 100 pages we get to know her better and what drives her to do what she does and make the choices that she makes. Refusing to take more blame than the rest of the world for this disaster, the narrator forces us to confront our biases and indifference.

Small Boat was shortlisted for The International Booker Prize 2025. Despite being just a little over a 100 pages long, I found myself reading it very slowly, deliberating over many ideas presented in the book. It’s definitely not an easy read but it’s compelling and you won’t be able to put it down. 

Fiction

Small Boat

Vincent Delecroix

Translated by Helen Stevenson

Published: 2025

Publisher: Simon & Schuster India

Pages: 122, Paperback

Everything about ‘The Husbands’ by Holly Gramazio called to me. It’s the writer and game designer’s first novel and I believe first novels hold immense potential. But apart from that fact, the bright blue cover with neon orange ladder and lightbulb, blurbs by two of my favorite authors, Marian Keyes and Gabrielle Zevin, and the plural form of husband all seemed to promise a rollicking read. It felt like a treat and I’m pleased to say that it was every bit as fun as I thought it would be. 

The Husbands has a solid premise and what makes it better is that the writing is witty too. One night drunk Lauren finds a strange man in her flat who claims to be her husband. There is lots of evidence that attest to the fact though Lauren can’t remember ever getting married to this man. There are photos of him on her phone, and her friends know him. Then he goes into the attic and another one comes down instead of the one who went up. Lauren realizes that her attic is creating an endless supply of husbands.

For Lauren, it’s a chance to reset her life whenever she doesn’t like it or she doesn’t like the man she’s with. But when it’s so easy to change who you are with, then how do you know if the one you are with is the best for you? How long should you keep trying to find the ‘perfect’ one?  Lauren ends up sending one ‘husband’ after another to the attic when she can’t stand something about them and sometimes they are issues as small as innuendo filled jokes or that he’s overly effusive. 

It’s been less than two weeks since I got the book and just a few days since I finished it but I’ve already recommended it to all of my friends and even given the book to a few. It makes you forget your worries for a little while because it’s just so funny and interesting. However, it’s not just fun and games either. It makes you think about your own life and the choices you have made along the way that have led you to where you are. Would you erase something or someone from your life if you could have a chance to lead a brand new one? The Husbands might have been a book I had a good time reading and a book I used as an excuse to poke fun at my husband but it made me realize that sometimes the best life is the one you are living. 

Fiction

The Husbands

Holly Gramazio

Published: 2024

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

Pages: 353, Paperback