It was an evening dedicated to India's young writers at Koramangla's Sapna Book House at the launch of three collections of stories under the title “Urban Shots” — “Bright Lights”, “Crossroads” and “The Love Collection”.
Writers Anita Murthy and Prateek Gupta and two editors, Sneh Thakur of “The Love Collection” and Ahmed Faiyaz of “Crossroads” were in conversation.
“Young readers deserve to write and be read,” began Ahmed. “We first planned for two collections and that expanded into three.” For instance, Anita's story in “Crossroads” is about a live-in maid who has to make a choice between love and loyalty. “Maids are usually invisible to us. But they too have needs. My story is about a live-in maid who finds love, but needs to commit a crime against her family in order to gain it. She's at a crossroads,” explained Anita.
While the anthology “Crossroads” explores the conflict in the love lives of urban characters, “Bright Lights”, edited by Paritosh Uttam, explores interesting urban characters and the “The Love Collection” comprises 31 love stories by 27 authors.
“This collection traverses across a host of themes, it's full of bold and honest stories,” said Sneh. “When I was asked to write for the collection, the first thing I asked myself was whether I should write about something mushy or about the kind of conflicted relationships our generation has.”
In one of her stories, Sneh wrote about a couple who strayed and how they deal with their betrayal. “The challenge is to overcome tough spots and find oneself. Many stories in the collection are the triumph of love,” she added. One such story was Prateek Gupta's “Apple Pies and a Grey Sweater”.
“It's about two friends who are trying to find love, but are not able to accept what they feel for each other,” explains Prateek. “It's a journey of their discovery that what they're experiencing is love.” He feels that the stories in “Love Collection” address real issues faced by people. “Today, we have real stories and problems. There might not be a gun-touting uncle waiting outside the girl's house preventing the boy from meeting her. The stories which really work are the ones that readers relate to,” he argued. “Stories don't have to be complicated,” felt Ahmed. “They need to draw out simple characters and portray them as they are. Then it's easy to draw out emotions that can resonate with readers.” He announced that “Urban Shots” was planning a collection for young writers under 21.
