Beyond the Line: Short Stories

By Sourav Sarkar

In Search of Love is the romantic story of Nandini and Arunava. It is a story of how parents intervene and the turn their relationship takes after that .

Abortion narrates the story of murder investigation by professional detectives to identify the real culprit on the backdrop of romance, corruption, and crime in a private nursing home.

Beyond the Line is the story of struggle of socially and economically backward tribal people and their keen desire for progress. With the support of Leftist radical outfit, these tribals fight against the oppression of the local mafia anticipating that through these extremist groups they will be able to achieve their goal. By killing people, damaging government property nobody is going to gain anything because it is easy to break rather than to make. Tribals have realized that education is the biggest strength of the society today.

Other stories highlight the conflict of minds with varied interests, negotiation to kill humanity for survival of vested interests, manipulation for love and war to lead a colourful life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Jan 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543704617

Sourav Sarkar

Sourav Sarkar is a Ceramic Engineer from Calcutta University. He did his Management Development Programme from IIM, Lucknow on strategy for leaders. Sourav has acted in feature films, tele serials as well as Hindi plays. As a debut author, he has presented a basket of short stories based on love, greed, conflict, revenge and various shades of human relations in this book. He likes to share his views on social, economic and political issues with people through literature and is keen to showcase his stories through histrionics.

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Sourav Sarkar.

1st edition 2016

2nd edition 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

Contents

In search of love

Abortion

Dawn to Dusk

Struggle for existence

Student union

Gambler

Negotiation

Beyond the Line

T o

my respected father Late C R Sarkar and mother Iva Sarkar

Preface

A s a debut author I have presented a bouquet of short stories partly based on true incidents and partly on imagination. While working in several organizations I have had the opportunity to travel extensively across India and stayed in various parts of the country. I interacted with a lot of people from different cultural backgrounds. I have shared some of the experiences and thoughts of my journey of life. It is not my intention to hurt anybody, and neither I am promoting or criticizing any kind of political ideology. I feel that the world is beautiful and I desire that people live here in peace. Let the world be free from poverty, starvation and illite racy.

The second edition of this book is absolutely based on the feedback of readers and well-wishers. The content remains the same, but the presentation has been revised keeping in mind the opinions and upgradation of literary values.

Your feedback plays a critical role.

Please share your view at

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

www.souravsarkar.in

In search of love

N andini and Arunava stayed in the same area of Kolkata. Nandini was 5 years younger than Arunava. They had met through a common friend. It was love at first sight. Initially, they met at various locations like the Metro or Lighthouse or New Empire movie halls. Going for a movie was kind of a normal activity for the two. Coming out of the theatre much before the movie ended was also a regular thing for the couple. They used to argue on so many issues like films, politics, sports, etc. Arunava had an interest in stage plays conducted by experimental theatre groups. These plays were based on the works of renowned theatre personalities like Brecht etc. Some plays were based on real life stories also. Some were on famous historical characters. Arunava loved watching plays of different production houses at Academy of Fine Arts. The messages communicated through these plays somehow touched Arunava. Many a times, he tried taking Nandini to these plays, but she had no interest at all. Therefore, going to see theatre almost stopped after a certain point of time. Nandini was more keen to watch the commercial potboilers. Arunava had no other option than to watch mindless movies just to give company to his sweeth eart.

Nandini’s mother was supportive of their relationship. Her mother had started liking Arunava. In fact, Nandini’s mother knew Arunava’s mother much before the two got into a relationship. Of course it was not a very close association. In fact, Arunava’s mother never expressed any keen desire to be close. However, Nandini’s mother encouraged the intimacy of Arunava with her daughter knowing fully well that this relationship might not be liked by his family. Arunava was a bright young handsome guy. Any mother of a young daughter would be interested in getting him as a son-in-law.

She allowed Nandini to go out with Arunava. Once Arunava and Nandini went to a restaurant. Arunava was completing his post-graduation and was not earning that time. He used to earn his pocket money from the few tuitions that he gave. Otherwise his mother was the only source of money for him. Arunava ordered quite a few dishes in consultation with Nandini. At the end of it when the bill arrived, Arunava found he didn’t have sufficient money to pay. Nandini too checked her purse, but even after combining both their money, it was not enough to pay the entire bill. It turned out to be a very embarrassing situation for the two. They had no idea how to deal with the situation. Suddenly, Nandini’s mother entered the restaurant out of nowhere. It was really a pleasant surprise for the distressed couple. She paid the entire bill. Finally, they left together in relief.

Actually, what happened was, Nandini’s mother didn’t let her daughter move freely. So, she followed the two from a distance and reached the restaurant. For the next couple of days, the restaurant fiasco became a butt of jokes for their family.

Gradually, Arunava started visiting Nandini’s residence. Her mother allowed them their privacy. In fact, at this stage, nobody was too keen in disclosing their relationship, especially Arunava, who was too scared of his mother. She was not aware of the relationship between Arunava and Nandini.Arunava never disclosed his relationship with Nandini to his mother.

Being the only child, he was virtually controlled by his mother. In fact, she was too dominating. Arunava’s mother was actually a pretty woman, but she was not keen to allow the young pretty girls to get closer with her son. Whenever she smelt of any relation of Arunava, she deliberately interfered to end it as soon as possible. It was a peculiar sense of insecurity for a possessive mother. She could not stand any close proximity of any beautiful girl with her son. Probably, at the back of her mind there was the fear that she might lose her son.

Nandini was a pretty girl with a good figure. She used to generally wear long skirts. Nandini was polite and down to earth. But she was also monitored by her mother too much.