The Gurkha's daughter by Prajwal Parajuly

"The Gurkha's daughter" by Prajwal Parajuly. This book is published by Quercus in 2014 and has 304 pages.  It's a collection of eight stories.

'The cleft' is story of Kali, a black servant girl of 13 with a cleft lip & her master, a widow when they travel to Birtamod for a funeral.

'Let sleeping dogs lie' is the story of Munnu, a Bihari Musalmaan paanwala, in Kalimpong who is losing money due to a kleptomaniac daughter of a rich man. What can he do?

'A father's journey' takes us through the journey of a father and his daughter from age six to age thirty in Gangtok.

'Missed blessing' is a story of a young jobless engineer staying with his brother and grandmother in Darjeeling. It's a day in his life when western Christians purportedly try to convert him and unwanted relatives come for Tika ceremony and stay at his house stretching his resources.

'No land is her land' is story of Anamika, an ethnic Nepali Bhutanese from Phuntsholing who is a refugee staying in Khudunabari Nepal and who has a chance to migrate to America.

'The Gurkha's daughter' is a beautiful story set in Kathmandu. It's a story about two little girls who are best friends.What happens in their emotional worlds when transformations take place in their lives?

'Passing fancy' is the story of a recently retired mother's perceptions in Gangtok whose children are in America.

'The immigrants' is the story of a well to do Nepali Indian working in Manhattan and his Nepali maid who unknowingly becomes his good friend.

As the name suggests, all the stories are of Nepali people (Gurkha) living either in Nepal, Bhutan or India (BTW, the book was published in America). These are the stories of common Gurkha people, their poverty, plight, difficulties, issues, emotions, thinking, transitions and ups and downs in their lives.

All these stories are about feelings, emotions and perceptions, be it a small child, an army man, an immigrant, a retired lady, an unemployed youth or a common person. The steak of immigrant or displacement appears frequently.

An interesting aspect of the book is that, in each story the author has given a part map of the Gurkha area which includes India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh identifying the city where the story takes place. It helps in understanding the ambience.

Of all these stories, I liked 'The Gurkha's daughter', 'Let sleeping dogs lie' & 'The immigrants' most.

Read it for it's different perspective.