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| Source: Goodreads |
Chetan Raj Shreshta
Published 2013 by Aleph Book Company
151 pages, novella, crime, social commentary, women's rights, peasant issues, historical fiction
Found: signed first edition copy (!) at Rachna Books, Gangtok, Sikkim
This beautiful volume contains two novellas set in the author's home state of Sikkim, India.
"An Open-and-Shut Case"
When a police officer is brutally murdered by his wife, it seems like the case will be easy to settle. It falls upon the new head of the local police department, a tough female officer named Dechen, to clear up the case as quickly as possible. But when Dechen talks to the accused and her daughter, the lines between murder and self protection begin to blur. And then there is the little matter of the terrible rape and torture committed by her predecessor, which the locals are still angry about...
"The King's Harvest"
In June 2005, after spending 32 years farming in a remote mountain valley, a man named Tontem arrives in Gangtok in search of the king's palace. For the last three years, no one has come to collect the king's share of Tontem's crops. His whole valley is filled with the stench of unused, rotting crops, so he decides to set out on a journey with his two youngest children to find out what happened.
In more than thirty years, Sikkim has changed to be nearly unrecognizable. What will he find after he braves the journey to the capital in a taxi, or as he terms it, a "giant wheeled rat"?
The irony of this story comes from the history of Sikkim, of which Tontem is blissfully unaware. The Sikkimese monarchy was abolished in 1975, at which time it became a state of India. Tontem, isolated in a remote valley, has not been informed of this; he continues to profess his loyalty to the former king and does not realize that he has become the citizen of another country.
In more than thirty years, Sikkim has changed to be nearly unrecognizable. What will he find after he braves the journey to the capital in a taxi, or as he terms it, a "giant wheeled rat"?
The irony of this story comes from the history of Sikkim, of which Tontem is blissfully unaware. The Sikkimese monarchy was abolished in 1975, at which time it became a state of India. Tontem, isolated in a remote valley, has not been informed of this; he continues to profess his loyalty to the former king and does not realize that he has become the citizen of another country.
