This Is How It Took Place by Rudrakshi Bhattacharjee

‘Prodigious, gifted, precocious: Rudrakshi Bhattacharjee was all of this. It is an incalculable loss to Indian literature that she left us at the age of sixteen.’

• JEET THAYIL

It seems as if I have been waiting here for years.

Thus begins the first story in this collection: someone waiting for a delayed flight at the airport. What happens next might be described as ordinary, mundane even, but when seen through Rudrakshi Bhattacharjee’s eyes, each moment is magnified, the emotional threads that make it up laid bare. A girl tries in vain to please her mother, a young woman comes to terms with her infidelity, siblings take over each other’s identities – these stories, often told from the perspectives of silent rebels, headstrong loners and nihilistic onlookers, open up the fissures between friendship, love, marriage and familial bonds.

Selected and edited by Shinie Antony, the sixteen stories in the book are fuelled by a singular and affecting voice. Talking about the curating process, Shinie Antony said, ‘Putting these stories together was an emotional journey. Rudrakshi speaks through each story, her voice building a world, brick by brick, you cannot leave.’

Udayan Mitra, Publisher, Harper Collins India added, ‘Rudrakshi Bhattacharjee was an incredibly talented young writer; if she had lived, she would surely have been a literary phenomenon. She left behind a body of work that is quite stunning in the way it reflects her maturity of thought, her skill as a writer, and the individuality of her vision. This Is How It Took Place, the collection of Rudrakshi’s writings that Shinie Antony has so ably edited, finds a pride of place on HarperCollins’s literary fiction list. It is a book that is very special for me, and for all of us at HarperCollins.’

This Is How It Took Place is a truly masterful debut.

‘Prodigious, gifted, precocious: Rudrakshi Bhattacharjee was all of this. It is an incalculable loss to Indian literature that she left us at the age of sixteen.’

• JEET THAYIL

It seems as if I have been waiting here for years.

Thus begins the first story in this collection: someone waiting for a delayed flight at the airport. What happens next might be described as ordinary, mundane even, but when seen through Rudrakshi Bhattacharjee’s eyes, each moment is magnified, the emotional threads that make it up laid bare. A girl tries in vain to please her mother, a young woman comes to terms with her infidelity, siblings take over each other’s identities – these stories, often told from the perspectives of silent rebels, headstrong loners and nihilistic onlookers, open up the fissures between friendship, love, marriage and familial bonds.

Selected and edited by Shinie Antony, the sixteen stories in the book are fuelled by a singular and affecting voice. Talking about the curating process, Shinie Antony said, ‘Putting these stories together was an emotional journey. Rudrakshi speaks through each story, her voice building a world, brick by brick, you cannot leave.’

Udayan Mitra, Publisher, Harper Collins India added, ‘Rudrakshi Bhattacharjee was an incredibly talented young writer; if she had lived, she would surely have been a literary phenomenon. She left behind a body of work that is quite stunning in the way it reflects her maturity of thought, her skill as a writer, and the individuality of her vision. This Is How It Took Place, the collection of Rudrakshi’s writings that Shinie Antony has so ably edited, finds a pride of place on HarperCollins’s literary fiction list. It is a book that is very special for me, and for all of us at HarperCollins.’

This Is How It Took Place is a truly masterful debut.

B Paperback | pp 224 | Rs. 399

For reviews and excerpts,

please email or contact

Jaseya.Fazili@harpercollins.co.in; +91-9769079212