Ghalib at Dusk by Nighat Gandhi

Ghalib at Dusk is a collection of short stories by Nighat Gandhi. I remember this book from long long back, when i had chanced upon it in the BITS Goa library. I remember imagining then that it must be about a bunch of middle aged friends from a north Indian town like Lucknow, who met in the evenings post work to discuss Ghalib, among other things. I imagined these friends as indulgent folks, who would be interested in finer things in life like Urdu poetry and chess, history and cinema - and that intrigued me mildly. I, of course, did not end up reading the book in college but somehow the book remaining pinned in a corner of a brain and came to me a few weeks back when i was looking for a book to read. Those were the days of humid, rain infested evenings and the 'sama' seemed ideal to read about indulgent folks reminiscing about Ghalib - as i had imagined the book to be. That is how i ended up purchasing a kindle version of this book. 

The book, reflecting the authors life, is divided into Pakistan and India. The author is a psychiatrist by profession and a feminist, and both of these aspects come out strongly in the stories. So much so that it sometimes seems forced, as if the stories were written just to put forth a point the author had already made up in her mind. That, of course, is always the case. A writer always creates fiction to show a particular side of reality which he or she has mostly made up her mind about. But a good story enchants you with the end product without letting the threads show, sliding in the writers point without the reader even realizing it. Whereas there are some stories in this book where this does not happen very gracefully, there are others where the storytelling clicks and these are the ones that have stayed with me. The memorable stories are mostly the one pivoting more on imagery and characters, rather than the actions of the characters. This might be telling more about me rather than the stories themselves. 

Some of the stories that i enjoyed are In Lieu of Gold, Trains, Desire by Any Other Name and Ghalib at Dusk. I was very keen on reading the final story, Ghalib at Dusk. It turned out to be something completely different than what i had imagined, but i liked it still - especially for the imagery of an old Lucknow house, evenings just before rains and a power failure.  

But these stories too i would not remember for long - except for the bits of them which will keep on coming back to me from time to time. When they do, i might not even know where i am remembering them from. I think this is that kind of book, not exceptionally written, nor having the most memorable characters, but leaving a few nudges and marks in your memory room for them to soon fade into and mix with other memories, real and fictional. 

An after taste of the book is still the anticipation to read about a bunch of indulgent middle aged friends, who have made peace with their life in a small town like Lucknow or Ratnagiri, and who gather in the evenings with the urgency of opening businesses only to discuss Ghalib, history, poetry and cinema, among other things. A part of me wants to belong to such a group.