A great short story reveals a moment of truth,’ writes Ruskin Bond while introducing this anthology of a 100 Indian Stories ably edited by

AJ Thomas. As the book’s cover declares, it turns out to be a feast of remarkable short fiction spanning three centuries. These stories begin in the 19th century, move on to the 20th, and end with two decades of the 21st century.

Bond likens the short story to a ‘flash of lightning.’ For those of us who happen to live in the hills of Landour, we are fortunate to have seen lightning—both forked and sheet—light up many a dark monsoon night. Then comes the roll of distant thunder. But you don’t have to worry because it is merely the applause as you exit a stadium.

Other writers, too, have found this ridge bristling with lightning: John Lang, the Australian-born author who spent his last years up here, found ‘Landour and the Cape of Good Hope’ as the best places in the world to see the displays of lightning.

This must be the biggest and most ambitious collection of Indian short fiction ever seen together between the covers of a single volume. This monumental anthology brings together a hundred years of the country’s finest writers.

Starting with grand masters like Rabindranath Tagore’s Kabuliwala and the Odia writer, Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Rebati from the 19th century, the book moves through the 20th century, gathering the best that the greats offered before those of the 21st century’s lights lit up the firmament.

To this banquet of words, the book brings the best written in any Indian language, region, generation, and literary tradition.

More than a hundred years later, still fresh is Tagore’s stunning Kabuliwala, considering that it was first published in 1898. It tells the tale of the immortal man from Afghanistan, who has, in a blind fit of rage, killed one of his debtors. Or there is Kalki’s offering in 1925 or the early decades of the 19th century, The Governor’s Visit, which first found publication in the magazine Navashakti.

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