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Two men stuck in a small mountain town develop an unlikely and unspoken friendship; a punctilious bureaucrat becomes briefly reckless at the end of his career; a high- class prostitute on vacation reads The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to a man recovering from the end of a long affair; the ghosts of Partition return in 1984 to destroy the equilibrium of a tough Sikh matriarch; an ageing widow finds freedom and peace in poetry. In clean, understated prose Navtej Sarna’s stories take us through the landscapes of Moscow, Geneva, Shimla, Paris, Delhi and Bombay, where everyday people find or lose their way in life quietly, almost by accident.
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Marked by rare sensitivity and compassion, this collection by the acclaimed author of The Exile and We Werent Lovers Like That is a poignant ode to the human spirit.
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About the Author
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Navtej Sarna studied at Delhi University and joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1980. Till recently Indias ambassador to Israel, he has earlier served as a diplomat in several capitals and as the Foreign Office spokesperson. He is the author of the novels We weren’t Lovers Like That and The Exile, as well as non-fiction works The Book of Nanak, Folk Tales of Poland, and a translation of Guru Gobind Singh’s Zafarnama. His short stories have been broadcast over the BBC World Service and he contributes regularly to The Times Literary Supplement, The Hindu and other magazines and journals.
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