Lately, the short stories I’ve been reading in literary journals tend to be on the “long” side of short. When your story exceeds 40 pages, you’ve got one-third of a novel. Just keep going.
In my mind, the short story has a similar goal to a poem – conveying a story or concept succinctly. That’s why neither is a novel. If it takes you forty pages to get your short story finished, you might just be trying to do too much for that genre…consider either “focusing” your short story or expanding it to become a novel.
That’s why I found Drizzle of Yesteryears and other stories, by Indian author M.K. Ajay, to be so refreshing. The longest story in this collection is only eleven pages long, yet each story seems complete and fully realized. Ajay is able to really capture in snapshot form the lives of his characters, who struggle with issues of identity.
The seventeen stories in this collection, which focuses on the people of a fictional town in the Kerala region of south India, are divided into two sections: “At Home” and “In Exile.” Many of the characters in the latter section remain in India, though perhaps far removed from Kerala, while other characters go as far as Vienna, Austria, and Texas.
Ajay has a wonderful way of twisting his readers’ perceptions at the end of many of his stories – similar to M. Night Shyamalan in his movies. As you approach the final page of a story, Ajay casually inserts new information that jolts the reader awake – Wait! These characters are not who I thought they were! – and you go back to reread with a new understanding of the emotive forces at play in the story.
In that way, each story works quite well on two different levels – the initial understanding, and then on the closer, enlightened level you are introduced to at the end.
No matter how many levels you uncover, Ajay’s collection will delight you with its refreshing subject matter and its fascinating, unique characters.
113 pgs.
