“We both are with different people today and are comfortable with them. That bothers me. When we separated and Jim came into my life,I thought my love for him will always be different than it was for you, and I imagined you feeling the same way about Gena. It's different, yes, but not as bad as I thought it'll be, and that hurts me. You know what I mean? And it's not even like one of us died. We've moved on so easily, Jake. How?”
Jake looks at her tenderly. Jake and Jill we used to call each other. If Jake was to tumble, Jill would tumble after is what we had agreed on.
“What happened to that love, Jake?”
In the sad, heartbreaking title story, an old couple relive their beautiful moments, while they await the inevitable. In other tales, a mother does the unthinkable to feed her starving children; a father's blind love for his son causes nothing but anguish to him; an old man in desperate need of answers seeks counsel of a young boy; a child yearns for the love of her parents; a village landlord throws a feast to save his life; two couples struggle to understand love; a woman likes the idea of marriage, but is afraid of men.
What Happened to That Love is a short story collection comprising 12 stories set in India and Australia that explore life, death, love, ache, greed, hope, destiny, alienation, fallacies, and the nature of rural and urban life, and the changes that come to us all.
About the Author(s)
Kailash Srinivasan was born in Delhi, and holds a Masters in Writing from Macquarie University, Sydney. He is passionate about writing, music and acting, and has dabbled equally in all of these fields. However, writing is and will continue to remain his first love.
‘What happened to that love’ is his first book. He’s currently working on a novel. He lives in Pune, and works as Manager, Communications at DYPDC Center for Automotive Research and Studies. He also freelances as a copywriter and content writer.
He can be reached at kailash.srinivasan@gmail.com
Reviews
Srinivasan possesses the astute eye and sensitive ear to catch the subtle shades of human emotions; his characters are believable and real, his themes engaging and profound. The voice carries echoes of Raymond Carver, but it is distinctly Srinivasan's: compassionate but detached, probing and ironic, the gentle and sometimes grim humour effectively balancing the pathos. It is a rewarding collection to read. - Dr. Kim Cheng Boey, Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle, Australia
^ Top
Anytime Now
Brownies
What Happened to That Love
What Should I Do
Gilligilli-Jillijilli
Ganga
Gratitude
My Black and Blue Birthday
Piano Concerto No.24
My Hand
Dunno
The Giver of Feasts
^ Top
Sample Chapters
(Following is an extract of the content from the book) | Hide  |
<h4>What Should I Do?</h4>
Gopal sat under the banyan tree, his knees drawn closer, and elbows resting on them, but not leaning back fully. He held a cigarette between his middle and ring finger and stared at no object in particular. His eyes reflected an unbearable grief. His plate with the leftover food and an empty tumbler of tea lay next to him. Half a piece of onion and lemon that came with the meal lay untouched. A small fire crackled on the side. Behind the tree, in front of the dhaba, on the jute-woven cots sat other truck drivers, eating and talking, and who like him were used to having meals at unlikely hours.
The old man’s moroseness was such that it made his fellow drivers think that he should quit driving and go live in the Himalayas. No one knew why the old man felt so wretched. He was friendly with all the drivers, but never shared his sorrows with them. He felt that burdening them with his woes, when they spent so much time away from their own families, would just make their lives even more miserable. Soon, the drivers got tired of his silence, and even seeing him suffused them with melancholy, and hence they avoided him. “If you greet him, he only grunts. He wasn’t always like this,” they would say.
The old man took a long drag of his cigarette and exhaled as though to liberate himself of some load that was pressing him down. A young truck cleaner, Chottey, who worked for Buta Singh, a hefty, yet gentle Sikh with a close-cropped beard, had often seen the old man at the dhaba. Chottey, fifteen years of age, wanted more than anything to talk to the old man. He believed there was some connection between them. Chottey hadn’t seen his own grandfather since the night he had ran away from his home in Aurangabad to come to Mumbai for work. His words often came back to him: “Sharing one’s sorrow helps in dealing with pain and loneliness.”
“Hello grandfather,” Chottey said cheerfully, as he spread his damp cleaning cloth on the ground, and plunked down on top of it.
The old man, surprised at being addressed that way, looked up and stared at the boy in grubby, gray shorts and an undershirt. “Hello,” he replied reluctantly. The interruption made him aware that he still had the cigarette in his hand. He took another puff and threw the butt in the fire. Orange sparks flew into the air and disappeared.
“What’s your name, grandfather?”
“Mh-m?” he replied absentmindedly. “My name?” The old man smiled, just enough to make the wrinkles crowd at the tip of his lips and near his eyes. “My parents named me Gopal.”
The young boy’s heart jumped and he smiled sweetly. “My name is also Gopal.” Instantly, his eyes brimmed with tears and he covered his face with his palm, overwhelmed with a feeling of familiarity.
“Hey, stupid boy. Why are you crying? I am here, right beside you,” the old man said, suddenly animated. The boy’s tears aroused something tender inside him.
“I wish to see my parents and my grandfather,” the boy said, calming down bit by bit. “I left home to come to Mumbai without telling anyone.”
“Then why don’t you go home?” the old man asked, his body angled towards the boy, his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
^ Top
