Of dissolved creatures and the tumbling earth

"The beauty of art presents itself to sense, to feeling, to perception, to imagination; its sphere is not that of thought, and the apprehension of its activity and its productions demand another than that of the scientific intelligence. Moreover, what we enjoy in the beauty of art is precisely the freedom of its productive and plastic energy," wrote Hegel in The Range of Aesthetic Defined.

- Saurabh Sharma

Unbidden, the statement came to mind while reading Sonali Prasad's debut novel, Glass Bottom. The New Delhi-based journalist's climate-fiction about daughters and mothers that proffers vignettes akin to a Kiran Rao-arthouse screenplay begins with a glimpse into the mind of Gulmohar (Gul), who works at a science centre in a cyclone-prone area near the Arabian Sea. She is obsessed with her braid, and her pride in her long hair is reflected in the envious gaze of others, which further encourages her to maintain the image for them. Other than her, the principal cast of characters includes Gul's daughter, Arth; Luni, a migrant from the northeast, who works at a beauty parlour; and her daughter, Himmo (Himani).

The Arabian Sea, which is both a source of succour and havoc in the lives of the characters, governs the story in the most subliminal ways, as everyone seems to have grown up being fed with myths, facts and stories about it.