March, Ma Aur Sakura

March, Ma Aur Sakura, Harper Hindi’s first original Hindi title is a mixed bag of old and new stories from the author of Mai, Tirohit and Hamara Sheher Us Baras. It deals with ordinary everyday realities such as the routine of a woman in a middle class household, a morning walk, man-woman relationship, a writer’s struggle to find a space to write in, old age, death, desire and loneliness in a very remarkable manner . Where should a writer head to finish an unfinished book – to an empty house in the middle of nowhere or to the busy crossroads of a joint family? Whose name must a woman utter in mid-sleep – her husband’s or her lover’s? What does the first holiday of her life mean to a woman who travels alone all the way from India to Japan to see her son? How does the memory of a shameful suicide in a house spread like fear in the air on a dark, stormy night? How many minutes does it a take a man fancying his friend’s wife to return to reality? No two questions are alike, no two situations alike. Neither do the inner lives described in these tales flow in a single stream of consciousness. Each subject, relationship or human struggle dealt with is a pack of several voices jostling against each other to emerge as a solution to the writer’s dilemma.