• ISBN13: 9789391125431
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: Creative Writing, Fiction
• Publisher: Niyogi Books
• Publisher Imprint: NiyogiBook
• Publication Date: June 7, 2021
• Pages: 256
• Original Price: 450.0 INR
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 1000 grams

How free are women to make their own choices in the circumstances in which they find themselves?

How do ordinary citizens become caught in communal divisions and migrant labourers cope with despair during the pandemic? These are some of the queries posed by the poignant and thought-provoking tales in this book.

Set in various parts of India and abroad, this collection by one of India’s well-known writers powerfully captures slices of life to showcase the courage and strength of ordinary people.

A young woman derided as a freak chooses to live her life on her own terms; women from different backgrounds struggle against gender roles that are defined by rigid and oppressive social conventions; two migrant workers—rendered jobless during a lockdown—try to return to their village and maintain a bond of solidarity, despite different religious identities; a Sikh farmer living near the Line of Control loses his family to cross-border shelling but looks after the orphaned son of his neighbour from a different community.

Ganga’s Choice and Other Stories reflects the range and depth of Vaasanthi’s writing and shows how humanity redeems the individual and provides hope, even in the midst of adversity.

Vaasanthi is a leading writer, journalist and columnist in Tamil and English. She has published 30 novels, 6 collections of short stories, 4 volumes of journalistic articles and 4 travelogues in Tamil in the last 40 years. She was the Editor of the Tamil edition of India Today for 10 years. Her articles have appeared in leading Indian newspapers and magazines.

Her works have been translated in Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, English, Norwegian, Czech and Dutch. Two of her novels have been made into Malayalam films. She is the recipient of several awards in Tamil Nadu including the Best Short Story Writer award, Best Novel award for Ammani and Gnana Bharathi award. She has received the UP Sahitya Sansthan award and Punjab Sahitya Akademi award for her novels translated in Hindi and English respectively.

Now a freelance writer and journalist, she lives in Delhi.