Love Across the Salt Desert

The iconic title story of this collection narrates how Najab defies his father, the international border between India and Pakistan and the hostile salt desert of the Rann of Kutch for Fatimah. In ‘When Gandhi Came to Gorakhpur’ Shadilal, a small-time lawyer, dithers over giving up his profession and joining the freedom struggle until his mind is made up for him. And when Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni stints on a few silver coins for the poet Abul Qasim, he is visited by terrible nightmares in ‘Of Abul Qasim’. Love across the Salt Desert, which brings together a selection of Keki Daruwalla’s best-received short fiction, presents thematic variety and stunning breadth of vision. His prose is witty, precise and shot through with a unique poetic sensibility. These stories establish Daruwalla, one of India’s best-known poets, as a daring and gifted practitioner of short fiction. Son, have you brought anything? he asked, an edge of iron deliberately introduced into his voice. Yes, replied Najab, as he ushered Fatimah in. The rain stormed down and swept away three years of drought.