Karma Kola is a collection of short stories with the classic Deepak Kaul style. A little sarcasm here, a little satire there, and a lot of unrealistic, too-bold-to-be-true scenarios.
The book is the collection of submissions to the Write India Campaign Season 2 that ran between July 2017 and April 2018.
What is your take-home from Karma Kola?
Right from the eponymous first story, the author has proclaimed his mastery over metaphors. His metaphorical representations are breathtaking. The readers will be engrossed in the tales. No story had the same theme or title. Every time we read a story, we will have a different perspective available. The book has a strange finesse in providing different perspectives at different times.
The art of character craft
The author has crafted the characters quite well. They are the representatives of ordinary real lie characters in extraordinary circumstances. ‘The Tooth Fairy’ for instance, talks about a woman living with a husband who is frustrated with the circumstances. He has never beaten his wife but still, she ended up losing teeth. Sounds like an oxymoron, isn’t it?
Too bold for my taste
The stories ‘Extraordinary love’ and ‘Apprentice’ are too bold for my taste and misleading in my personal opinion. The opinion could be different for someone else but all I could see were incest and casting couch of sorts embellished with pearls of literature and hence disconcerting, at least for me.
Overall, the book is a roller coaster that leaves a good taste in the mouth along with some dizziness.
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