The spear and the shield of satire and fables

A new anthology conveys a keen flavour of Suniti Namjoshi's eccentric gift for spinning fantastical stories

- Aditya Mani Jha

One of the more enjoyable oddities of postmodern literature is the breathless, single-sentence composition. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story, The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship was written as one sentence, as were Bohumil Hrabal's novels Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age and Vita Nuova. In Matriarchs, Cows and Epic Villains, an anthology of Suniti Namjoshi's writing, the fable Broadcast Live spans just one sentence of 60-odd words, but ends up unleashing an entire chapter's worth of commentary.

"The Incredible Woman raged through the skies, lassoed a planet, set it in orbit, rescued a starship, flattened a mountain, straightened a building, smiled at a child, caught a few thieves, all in one morning, and then, took a little time off to visit her psychiatrist, since she is at heart a really womanly woman and all she wants is a normal life."