Source : Times of India
The collection of stories Madras on My Mind , edited by Chitra Viraraghavan and Krishna Shastri Devulapalli, is the publisher couple’s unusual tryst with fiction and reality. The book, through the eyes of various writers, is an anthology of a city where the past and present are woven together with innocence and experience.
Madras on My Mind captures a multi-faceted identity of Chennai and its inhabitants. The different characters in the different stories have an unconscious, intricate bond with the landscape and its life. Each story carries an essential fragrance of Madras, that goes much further beyond filter coffee or Carnatic music. Whether it is two children singing at Pithapuram railway station in Bujjai’s “Flowers on the Madras Train”, or writer K. Raja’s fight to emerge as an artist in “Still Life in Marana Vilas”, the life depicted in every story is vivid and vibrant. Most of all, they relate to every individual who love to belong to their own land.
Each tale in Madras on My Mind is handpicked by Shastri and Viraraghavan, and both fiction and non-fiction find their way into it. Abstaining from cliched portrayals of Chennai, the writers have painted the city with all their heart, sprinkling a bittersweet concoction of stories.
