Love blooms in the wreckage of violence. It blooms even as hearts turn strangers and brothers enemies. It blooms even as rivers of blood flow, passions are inflamed, and hatred stalks the land. Love knows no boundaries. No caste. No religion. Love can strike the heart of the village belle or the doughty lad with the look from under dark kohl lined eyes, the accidental touch of a hand adorned in simple glass bangles. And... Darvish, Beeran, Meiral and Chaitanya are helpless as its arrow pierces their hearts. All they understand is love. All the world around them understands is hate.
Set against the backdrop of a time when death trains pulled into stations between Lahore and Delhi, ‘East of Love West of Desire' is a collection of short stories about love that sears and consumes, elevates and devastates. They are stories of fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, men and women who come together, and yet are symbols of possibilities unexplored because the world around them is exploding, stripping them of their dignity and humanity.
These stories are about the darkest chapter of modern Indian history, as the sun set on the British Raj. But they are also timeless tales about growing up, love, longing, faith, differences...
