The Guru’s Library

Description

Short stories can prove a reliable source of pleasure in our rushed and stressful times, provided the author possesses a perceptive eye, to see into the human condition, whether in its light or darker aspects and a firm control of the chosen from, whether it be a slice of life, seemingly spontaneors yet shaped to frame a revelation or a well-plotted tale. Certainly The Guru’s Library offers us much that is straightforwardly enjoyable: as a varied and piquant collection the stories exact a wide range of reactions from the reader, from the belly laugh prompted by some to sheer delight in the foibles of a vigorous character like Cornelius of Madampe who surmounts his self-imposed problems and emerges a hero.

Tightly constructed, with events firmly hinged on the characters of their protagonists ‘The Night Watch’ and ‘The diminishing Whisky” are as well-crafted as they are diverting, while ‘The Monkey Man’ is a mini-mystery deepened by a light-reader.

Some of the stories go beyond technical skill and the ability to entertain to an almost emphatic perception  of modes of experience outside the range of the educated adult. ‘The Lost Balloon’ is charming in its evocation of a child’s breathless delight, sharp sense of loss, and quick return to happiness. ‘The Rickshaw Puller’ is deft and touching in its portrayal of a simple man’s much-enduring, unembittered acceptance of the grimmest poverty. Limpid and direct, these stories show an interesting contrast in tome to the urbane operation of sophistication and worldly wisdom in ‘The intellectural’, a finely drawn episode of professional jealousy with its subtle insights into the shadowed corners of such conflicts and triumphs.

Many of the stories are set in the past, a time of legendary stability. Brief and allegoric, ‘H.H.H.’ enshrines its memory; here, a marker of that vanished era ‘integrity’ (a word and concept that seems to have receded beyond visibility) stirs the older reader like the fragrance of Savandera roots in an old almirah. It is part of our history, of the changing climate of thought and valuable in alerting us to weigh what standards actually mean, As Chaucer emphasized, a story reveals its teller; and the extent of Dr. Sanderatne’s experience of men and matters, a mature and mellow vision of life, humane as well as humorous contributes as much to his writing as the lucidity of his intellect.

The uncluttered swift-paced style and fine balance between sense and sensibility is likely to make this book a welcome comparison in rare snatches of leisure or that treasured long week end by which, evern in 2004, “our souls are nourished, and invisibly repaired”.