'I had the idea, from books and movies, that love was a disease that afflicted only the young and the beautiful, and that this was something I had escaped, on a technicality. I was too thin, too dark. But now I realized I would never be free of its dangers; that I might make a fool of myself for love at any time, from now into the distant future.'
This collection of eight short stories traces the life of a dancer through the years. In the seventies, she is sent, as a teenager, from Canada to study dance in India, away from the corrupting influences of the West. She finds, instead, a world of sensuality beyond anything previously experienced. She meets a movie star, goes on bike rides with boys she doesn't know, and learns about the perils of falling in love from the plight of an older, revered man. Time and again, she comes back to India, as a wife and a mother, to rediscover the earthiness and passion of her youth.
Gitanjali Kolanad transforms fragments of life into stories of love, infidelity and betrayal with the grace, elegance and effortless ease of a classical dancer.
