‘Urban Nights’ is a collection of short stories by author Vishal Anand. The collection shows the lives of people living in cities, both big and small. The third book by Vishal, following the success of ‘Emotions Unplugged’ and ‘37+Grace Marks’, is a mixed bag of emotions–nostalgia, anger, love, sorrow. Vishal displays a tender sensibility while dealing with the myriad of issues in the stories, and the book definitely has its heart in the right place. Yet the stories leave a lot to be desired.
Vishal picks up relevant contemporary issues for his stories. Universal feelings like greed, confusion, uncertainty, empathy are prevalent in all his stories, and are easily relatable for any reader–a commendable feat. Stories like ‘The Twenty Rupee Note’ and ‘That Man in Tattered Blanket’ are stories with a universal appeal. The sad condition of Indian women and patriarchal oppression also find abundant sympathy in his stories, many of which are narrated from a woman’s point of view. Issues such as rape and taboo regarding menstruation are explored in the stories ‘Those 5 Days’, ‘The Touch of Fear’, ‘Pieces of Pain’.
The best story of the collection is certainly ‘That Evening of Chhath’. The story deals with that most universal urban feeling: the nostalgia for home. The story deals with a young boy working in a metro city and his desire to return to his hometown in Bihar for Chhath puja. The conflict between money and happiness plays out emotionally, as the narrator juggles between his demanding job and his nostalgia for the festival.
Yet, for all its charms, the stories do leave a lot to be desired. First and foremost, the essence of being a Ranchiite is just not there. In the dedication section of the book Vishal writers ‘to the essence of being a Ranchiite’, and the cover of the book is also a picture of the Roshpa Tower in Ranchi. But, the familiarity ends there. Ignoring the fact that many of the 16 stories in the collection are actually set in Bangalore, the stories set in small town too do not explore the distinct character of the capital city. There is a generalisation of the small town life, and the same stories could have been easily set in Bareily or Patna, for all we know. Each city has a life of its own, and that speciality of Ranchi seems to be missing.
The narrative structure and style also seem amiss in many stories, especially those where Vishal writes as someone he is actually not: a girl, or a beggar, or a woman stuck in an unhealthy marriage, or a woman who was raped. While these first person narratives are usually well-meant and deal with sensitive issues, the gravity of the issues is not really explored. There is no questioning of society from the suffering narrator’s point of view in these stories.
In the story ‘That Man in Tattered Blanket’, Vishal shows a narrow understanding of poverty and charity, and does not seem to question the supposedly ‘modern society’ in which such poverty still prevails. It is a shallow opinion of the poor that most of us privileged urban people harbour in our hearts. Yet the story is good in the way the experience is narrated. Similarly, the stories dealing with women issues are too fast paced for the reader to pause and ponder over the problems.
Also, it is noteworthy that somehow in most of the stories depicting family life, the domesticated role of women is never questioned deeply by Vishal. Though it is commendable that Vishal shows a readiness as a writer to deal with such issues, the book is worth a read.