Ashish Khetarpal

The Watchdog and Other Stories Ashish Khetarpal

This rare constellation of varied literary themes both troubles and surprises the reader with its intruding narrative and its vast swathe of picturesque fabric. Swinging between the natural and the supernatural, its characters are not easy to judge since most of them bear the same name of Kabir. By not forcing new names with each subsequent story, the reader is forced to see the same character in his different lives and avatars - so that he may not judge one without sympathizing with the other, and may not condemn one without lauding the other. In The Watchdog, Kabir is a coarse 'one-legged faint-hearted villain' during the times of the Raj, who despises the order of the world, whereas, in The Prophecy, he's forced to listen to a chiromancer as he interprets the hidden meanings in the lines of his palm; The Wall Phone and the Stack of Letters is a Sufi love story over a telephone; and, in the French city of Chandigarh, [a] Blind Man...sells cigarettes; there is Little Kabir, who is a thief and also a bibliophile; and there are others. Who will you judge, laud or condemn when it can very well be the same person?