It is their last evening together. Maya, Sandra and Derek, graduate students at UC Santa Cruz and house-mates for three years, are preparing for dinner with Uncle Prithvi, the house-owner. It’s a cheerful and quirky household: Sandra is prone to ‘Orkut attacks’; Derek silently pines for the wistful-looking Afghan boy in the photo on his wall; Maya, who has the hots for Derek, is inexplicably terrified of the ocean; and the elusive Uncle Prithvi communicates through notes he leaves all over the place.
Sad at parting, perhaps forever, and half tipsy, Maya, Sandra and Uncle Prithvi play a game of wapping stories as they wait for Derek to arrive. As the evening progresses, we learn their deep, dark secrets and hidden fears. Sandra, abandoned at birth, talks about growing up in an orphanage with her precious twin, disabled Solana, only to be separated by circumstances; Uncle Prithvi rues the loss of his beloved daughter, whom he betrayed when he sought a new life with Karen in the US. Maya, the narrator, can’t bring herself to open up-except when alone. And Derek avoids revealing himself altogether as he doesn’t turn up at all.
Finely crafted and deeply felt, Table for Four is a rumination on the burden of secrets, of learning to let go and accepting the betrayals and losses in our lives.
Archives: Books
On Dreams And Dreaming
Mapping the uncharted territory at the edges of psychological knowledge, these fascinating essays explore compelling aspects of dreams and dreaming. They discuss topics as diverse as memorable dreams, lucid dreaming, the role of dreams in the evolution of human consciousness and the relationship between dreams and the waking state.
In ‘The Dream and Its Embedding’, psychoanalyst Patrick Mahony demonstrates, with absorbing case studies, how dreams can become effective therapeutic tools, while dream scholar Kelly Bulkely concludes in ‘Big Dreams’ that, ultimately, the function of dreams is to make the brain grow. Luigi Zoja, dream analyst, explores the profusion of nightmares among soldiers, prisoners and other victims of war in ‘Nightmares’. And Madhu Tandan, who lived for seven years at an ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas, explains how dreams can access a level of consciousness beyond the psychological.
This volume is the first in the ‘Boundaries of Consciousness’ series, which, under the leadership of Sudhir Kakar, seeks to bring together psychoanalysts, philosophers, religious studies scholars and neuroscientists in order to expand the frontiers of current psychological understanding. Subsequent volumes will spring from symposia held at Wasan Island, Canada, on the supernatural, death and dying and creativity and imagination.
Edited and introduced by Sudhir Kakar, On Dreams and Dreaming will be of interest to scholars and to all who dream and seek to understand why.
Gopallapuram
A highway robber murders a pregnant young woman for her jewellery. He is caught and sentenced to death by impalement in Gopallapuram. A community of Telugu speakers migrates to the Tamil country to escape Muslim rule. They transform a barren land, turning it into a fertile, verdant village. A horde of bandits attempts to raid a village but is foiled by the unarmed, inventive villagers. Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Awars, Ki. Rajanarayanan weaves legend, myth, history and good old-fashioned storytelling in this wonderful contemporary classic.
Land Of Two Rivers
Love Across The Salt Desert
No Deadline For Love
Jack Patel’s Dubai Dreams
Birds, Beasts And Bandits
Souls In Exile
Bollywood actress Sunita Ashoka’s reality show Swayamvara Live has ended in bloodshed and disaster. Vikram, Amanjit and Rasita are on the run, accused of the actress’ murder. Exiled like the heroes of the Ramayana, they are seemingly beset by the same perils, especially when Vikram encounters an unlikely temptress. Then another tragedy, also foretold in the Ramayana, forces Vikram into the open. But there is hope: Amanjit’s skills as a warrior are returning, Rasita is beginning to remember her own past lives, and Deepika is awakening to powers undreamt. But the Enemy, Ravindra, has also found allies-the nightmarish Rakshasa army. Memories and legends are coming alive all over India, from the bloodied sands of Ullal and the fortress of Jhansi to secret places in Mumbai, Pushkar and Varanasi. The fight to the finish has begun . . .
