Worlds Within Worlds

TASHAN MEHTA'S SECOND NOVEL, MAD SISTERS OF ESI, REVELS IN WORLD-BUILDING, THE CORNERSTONE OF GOOD FANTASY

- Devangshu Datta

MAD SISTERS OF ESI

by Tashan Mehta

HARPERCOLLINS

₹599; 424 pages

This book is characterised by luminous prose and driven by a towering imagination. It features a very complicated, layered, fantastic universe with worlds and more worlds nested within yet more worlds. Two sisters wander within the body of a vast god whale, which is itself a universe. The whale swims in a black outer sea which is yet another universe.

One of the sisters is content to continue to wander and explore the inner landscapes, while the other breaks out into an equally fantastic universe where there are shape-shifting islands and a strange, mad family that lives by (or rather abides by, since not all the characters involved are alive) apparently insane rules on one of those islands.