The Dying Sun

Does age ever catch up with the immortal? Listen in as Heer and Ranjha converse in whispered tones of a time that was; walk around with Lord Ram who has stepped out of the mosque compound, unable to cope with the frenzy of devotees who have installed him there; fly away to London, where the ageing Kasturi Lal Brahman struggles to let go of the idea of India; follow the travails of a ‘perfect couple’ who compromise on everything that is decent to create the ‘perfect life’ for themselves; listen to a dog who has walked off the pages of an author’s stories to engage him in discussion on the world he has left behind. The Dying Sun collects eminent Urdu writer Joginder Paul’s stories of wonder, whimsy and wisdom. With elegant simplicity, Paul describes the journeys of his characters through myriad landscapes, from the tangible to the internal and the imagined. A pungent satire on liberalization, a mother’s plangent longing for her son, a playful take on an accountant’s obsession with a character in a TV serial as he copes with the drudgery of his daily life – Paul’s writing encompasses worlds that defy the imagination.