Book Review by K.S.Loganathan
Abha Iyengar is a poet and writer of flash fiction and short stories. She holds creative writing workshops and does street photography, cyber art and poem- films. In this book she includes 15 of her short stories written since 2002.
This collection is a copy book example of postmodern Indian feminist writing in English in the short story form . Iyengar employs short vignettes to move the stories forward, capturing the moments when emotions change, without warning, and reveal themselves . For the author , it is a poetic, rather than a prosaic impulse .
Text follows the image.

The title story ‘Big Daddy’s Chair ‘, is only a solid object in the narrator’s reality, but it is a cradle of fantasies played out by its user, who can be anybody who reclines on it with their eyes closed, legs splayed across the arms. The chair is a random object, devoid of meaning other than as a symbol of authority , but it is nevertheless useful .
Most of the stories are about middlebrow and marginalized women caught in home and professional obligations under a hegemonic masculinity and pushed to a breaking point. Some stories portray violence beneath the surface of everyday life.
My favorite story is ‘ The Revelation,’ which is the only one in which an equitable solution is found . Another memorable one is ‘Puppet Show ‘ featuring a day in the life of an indigent puppeteer . If the stories reflect the psyche of the twenty first century society in South Asia , it is a worrisome state of affairs indeed .
The editing is superb ; the charcoal sketches included in every chapter enhance the effect . If you are over eighteen and looking for a fifteen minute bite-sized dose of reality, taste it in one go.
Thanks to the author for arranging for a review copy.