Transactions of Belongings by Jaya Padmanabham

I have to admit that I picked up this book based solely on its title. ‘Transactions of Belonging’ sounded a bit ominous and it genuinely made me curious about this anthology of short stories by a single author.


This anthology contains twelve astonishingly daring and beautiful short stories that delve into human emotions thoroughly. From a mother daughter relationship to the life of an lonely old man to a mother anguishing over whether her son is a terrorist to a girl ending up as sex worker in her life to the connection between drinking and abuse to children becoming too independent of their parents. Name an emotion that real people feel in their lives that hasn’t been deeply explored already and it is there in this book.


Each story has its grip on the reader and I can’t, for the life of me, decide which story I like the best. Individually, each story has something unique to offer and as a whole this anthology is a bomb waiting to go off as readers turn its pages. It took me only a couple of hours to finish reading this book and I wished that there were more pages to be turned. I applaud the author for choosing to write such emotional short stories that tug at the right heartstrings. An amazing debut and I hope to read more meaningful work from this author soon.

 

Sorry buddy, I don't have a digital copy of this one.