Title: The Lady In The Mirror
Author:Â Charu Vashishtha
Publisher: StoryMirror
Genre: Short Stories
First Publication: 2019
Language:Â English
Book Summary: The Lady In The Mirror
Do you know what you really are? Or has life not tested you yet!
8 stories, 8 situations, 8 emotions…
Lata is quintessential Indian housewife. How come her blissful life got disturbed by all but a gentle sermon?
The handsome Piyush had the world at his feet and yet his world was empty!
Meera, an IAS officer, was living her dream but why wasn’t she happy?
Centuries ago, Ila the Playwright, found happiness in pursuing her passion but why was this a bane to many?
What happens when your subconscious tries to pass on a message?
Hurt and pain helped Madhav become a millionaire. How would be come to terms when he realizes that it was not him that was wronged but it was he who was wrong.
Meera is a budding comedian, but a great tragedy befalls her. Would she be able to hold her own in adverse circumstances?
Kapil found liberation in his quest for knowledge, but would his daughter follow his lead ?
Explore Greed (via Manifestation of God), Unspoken words (via The Last Confession), Internal Conflict (via The Lost Meera), Self-Belief (via The Mysterious Playwright), Subconscious-self (via Three of Him), Love (via Madhav and Meera), Jealousy (via The Comic’s Tragedy) and Freedom (via Life goes in a circle).
Book Review: The Lady In The Mirror
The Lady In The Mirror is an excellent set of short stories exploring the human condition with all its flaws and neurosis. Author Charu Vashishtha addresses internal conflicts, unspoken words, greed, self-belief, subconscious self, love, jealousy, and freedom through the 8 short stories in the book.
Life is full of missed opportunities and hard decisions. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to actually do. The Lady in the Mirror creates an image of an ever moving life, of an ever moving exchange of people who experience the reality of life. And that’s the whole point: realism. Not everything goes well, not everything is perfectly constructed. Life is random and unpredictable. If we’re not careful it may escape from us entirely.
Author Charu Vashishtha’s writing reveals itself in what she doesn’t say, the subtle suggestions, the lingering questions, as each story closes without any sense of full resolution. And, again, is this not true of real life? In narrative tradition there is a structured beginning, middle and end, but in the reality of existence it doesn’t quite work this way. Life carries on. It doesn’t have a form of narrative closure, a convenient wrapping up of plot, after each wound we take in life. It carries on. We carry on. And The Lady In The Mirror carries on.
What Author does here very successfully, is to manage and to create a series of wonderfully satisfying short stories – each within a fully realised world of their own. The stories not only feel effortless and have a real feeling of believability and authenticity, but Author Charu has successfully managed to create stories that although short, manage to be compelling, engaging and thought-provoking – as well as being satisfying; leaving the reader wanting more in every case…what happened next? But somehow manages to do this in a way that is fulfilling to the reader.
