Gariahat Junction  (English, Paperback, Rituparna Roy)

Katha, a young lecturer who is in a long-distance marriage and misses her husband, is stranded at Gariahat Junction during a traffic jam, unable to decide where to go (Gariahat Junction); Kabita’s PhD thesis, the culmination of her long struggle for identity while battling dire poverty, gets unwittingly burnt along with some “forbidden literature” during the Naxal revolution in Calcutta in 1971 (A Wasted Dream); a frustrated daughter-in-law of a joint family wages nightly battle with her in-laws (with a snoring husband by her side), telling them all that she cannot during the day (Imaginary Battles); Zuleikha, the young wife of the elderly chief artist in Mughal Emperor Akbar’s court, comes to terms with her childlessness in a lonely life till-now devoted to the making of perfumes (Zuleikha); Sharmila is a virgin at 33 and is unable to explain over a long-distance phone-call to her best friend Rakhee, why it is that she cannot offer herself to the man she loves (A Phone-Call); Ruplekha, a restless expat housewife, has an epiphany in a museum in Amsterdam, standing before an exhibition of medieval pottery (The Housewife); Neelakshi, an IT professional living through corporate drudgery in New York, rediscovers the love of her life - dance - after 17 years (Dancing Queen); 11-year-old Pakhee feels the first pain of her clipped wings when her beloved pair of swings in the playground is dismantled to save her and other young girls from the prying eyes of lecherous men (Vanilla Sky); a woman makes passionate love… and then stares blankly at her empty bed… realizing that this fantasy is all the romance that life can afford her (A Languorous Afternoon); Bhavna, a successful bank officer, is tired of the “jing-bang” in her life - her husband, son, in-laws, servants - and decides to abort her three month-old foetus, but is advised otherwise by her gynaecologist after a long, contentious consultation (Madonna & Child).