Echoes of Gasping Souls  (English, Paperback, Gandhi Gurucharan Singh)

Sitam, Nepali speaking from the North East, works in the dusty offices of Indian bureaucracy. He has seen racism at its worst during his University days. He is a frustrated Indian bureaucrat. Kulawant Kaur, 62, from Amritsar, is on her first solo trip, disguised as a pilgrimage. This trip is her revolt against the inescapable North-Indian patriarchy. Razia is a Malayali Muslim married to a Hindu. The only identity that matters to her is that of a woman. She hates it when others want her to be a Muslim or a Malayali. Manoj is a typical Engineer - MBA, highly driven, ambitious and suave. His superiority complex is nauseating. Sunil Paswan, a Dalit from Bihar is a hotel manager. He survived caste riots in his native village 30 years ago, after which he ran away to Mumbai and never went back. Together, they are stuck for the duration of the COVID 19 lockdown in Hotel Landmark in Mumbai. They hate it. They hated each other much more when they first met but then, transformations begin.