Floating Towel and a Dozen Short Stories
A roller-coaster ride of storms and dreams
Gautam Maitra
FOREWORD
It is, in a way, difficult to write about a book that is, in essence, a compilation of various short stories that my father had written across the span of two decades. It makes it more challenging that each and every story differs so vastly from the other - in terms of whether it be the scale, the settings or the tone. So when people ask me what ‘Floating Towel’ is really about, I find it imperative to say that it is about life itself. To be more precise, a middle-class person’s intensely-personal view of life. Life as it is and life as it should be. .......
INTRODUCTION
These dozen stories were bred in the turmoils of South Asia. These insignificant tales of humble people have lived for centuries and died their natural deaths. As I sit in my lonely chair awaiting the call of eternity, my young son - much to my surprise - came upon the weary manuscripts of these stories. All of them lying incoherently, insignificantly in the pile of useless papers. He took all the pains to edit them just to see me published in a life where I struggled with the orderliness and micro-managing of publishers. Something that I presume is every storyteller's nightmare. I hope the readers will bear the same patience that my son showed while hopping on this quick rollercoaster of a dozen short stories. The current times are so vastly different from the one I grew up in as a kid. We witnessed the moon-landing. My aunt who lived in Canada had sent me the best thing I could've imagined then. A small book on mankind's first adventures onto the moon. Television sets came much later. At the time, they were a box of many wonders, puzzlement and pleasant surprises. Of course, they brought with them their addictive zaniness and sloth. But times were different. We had a joint family as big as they would come in those days. A humdrum of aunts and uncles, cousins and nephews with a smattering of continuous noise, laughter and bickering used to make our day. Kids in such households had lots of freedom; an open sky and endless fields full of adventure. Those were the times. And that time moved. That time moved and we did not. That time that brought with it change. Brought with it the human rights movements. That brought with it a steady rise of envy, insufficiency and violence on the streets. A fulfilment of the Cavemen's ascension to rule the earth with vengeance and greed. And despite all that time brought with it, some things remained the same. There still ran the quiet little river of reverence, camaraderie and love in the cultural mosaic of an ancient land and an ancient people. As I look back at these dozen stories blinking from a past of my time that is long dead, I only pause and wonder about the transformational journey that it has been. A journey that had me as a witness to major upheavals in a society that is yet to relent, often it's vices kneeling down the virtues to reign in the present. Unchecked, unchallenged. It's honesty and simplicity being sold at subsidies, while it's acquired traits of hypocrisy easily run the markets at a premium. Time's have changed. And it's running out. Tick. Tock... Tick. Tock.
SAMPLE CHAPTER 2
