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Love Stories # 1 to 14
‘Curious villagers stopped to stare at this shameless man and woman whose fingers were wound in each others’ hair, and whose lips were stretched with impossible smiles, and faces were glowing like warm red wax in the late afternoon. But after a minute or two, they too walked away, because looking at the two any longer became unbearable.’
A woman who won’t let the shadow of death disrupt her love life, another who falls irrevocably in love with a dead police officer, a devoted wife who steps out twice a week for Narcotics Anonymous meetings, friends who should have been lovers, the woman who offers all her pent-up love to a railway announcer’s voice … Annie Zaidi’s stories are at once warm and distant, violent and gentle – and, above all, untroubled by cynicism. This is a look at love, straight in the eye, to understand the alluring nature of the beast.
A woman who won’t let the shadow of death disrupt her love life, another who falls irrevocably in love with a dead police officer, a devoted wife who steps out twice a week for Narcotics Anonymous meetings, friends who should have been lovers, the woman who offers all her pent-up love to a railway announcer’s voice … Annie Zaidi’s stories are at once warm and distant, violent and gentle – and, above all, untroubled by cynicism. This is a look at love, straight in the eye, to understand the alluring nature of the beast.
- GenresShort StoriesIndia
315 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
14 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Annie Zaidi
20 books360 followersAnnie Zaidi writes poetry, essays, fiction, and scripts for the stage and the screen.
She is the author of The Comeback (2025), City of Incident: A novel in twelve parts (2021), and Prelude to a Riot, which won the Tata prize for fiction (2020). She is a recipient of the Nine Dots prize (2019) for Bread, Cement, Cactus: A memoir of belonging and dislocation.
Her other books include Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales (collection of essays, short-listed for the Crossword Book Award (non- fiction) in 2010, Gulab (novella), Love Stories # 1 to 14 (short stories), and The Good Indian Girl (co-authored with Smriti Ravindra), and Crush (poetry).
She is also the editor of 'Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian women's Writing' and of 'Equal Halves'.
Her work has appeared in various anthologies, including Mumbai Noir; Women Changing India; India Shining, India Changing, and in literary journals like the Griffith Review, The Massachusetts Review, Big Bridge, Out of Print, and The Aleph Review.
Her work as a playwright has been performed and read in several cities. She received The Hindu Playwright Award (2018) for Untitled 1. Her radio script ‘Jam’ was named regional (South Asia) winner for the BBC’s International Playwriting Competition (2011).
She has also written and directed several short films and the documentary film, In her words: The journey of Indian women.
She is the author of The Comeback (2025), City of Incident: A novel in twelve parts (2021), and Prelude to a Riot, which won the Tata prize for fiction (2020). She is a recipient of the Nine Dots prize (2019) for Bread, Cement, Cactus: A memoir of belonging and dislocation.
Her other books include Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales (collection of essays, short-listed for the Crossword Book Award (non- fiction) in 2010, Gulab (novella), Love Stories # 1 to 14 (short stories), and The Good Indian Girl (co-authored with Smriti Ravindra), and Crush (poetry).
She is also the editor of 'Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian women's Writing' and of 'Equal Halves'.
Her work has appeared in various anthologies, including Mumbai Noir; Women Changing India; India Shining, India Changing, and in literary journals like the Griffith Review, The Massachusetts Review, Big Bridge, Out of Print, and The Aleph Review.
Her work as a playwright has been performed and read in several cities. She received The Hindu Playwright Award (2018) for Untitled 1. Her radio script ‘Jam’ was named regional (South Asia) winner for the BBC’s International Playwriting Competition (2011).
She has also written and directed several short films and the documentary film, In her words: The journey of Indian women.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 3, 2013
Love - with a human touch!
How many times do we take out the time to investigate the strange little things that move our heart and the unexpected places where we find love. We live in a time where “love” is a loaded word with a cliched meaning, sold to us as a romantic ideal with the same, one dimensional characters; pretty faces that are “smart, beautiful and funny” when in reality we encounter and experience love in myriad ways, each having the ability to surprise us and give us something to remember or to live for. There is no age for us to fall in love nor does the emotion care about propriety or social norms, and it certainly does not come announced. Sometimes you are just in love with someone’s words and the beautiful and thoughtful way that they use it convey ideas that explore a world that we all live in and give us hope because of our infinite capacity to love another human being in whatever form that it takes.
Annie’s stories are not teen romances that are aspirational and otherworldly, but they open up small little worlds that are hidden to us and makes us wonder about the stories of people who we meet in our everyday life. Her stories are filled with real people and they have the ability to make us think and challenge on how we perceive our own emotions and what love means to us. Sometimes, love can be as bizarre as being in love with a voice and our imaginations of that person behind that voice. Sometimes, opposites attract and a thrill seeker could be a perfect counterpart to a content man. Her stories are not just about the intriguing ways that people find love but is also perhaps an attempt to humanize stereotypes. Even though it is one of the weaker stories, we learn in one of them to empathise and appreciate the perspective of a woman who would traditionally be stereotyped as a loose and immoral woman.
Her stories bring out the quest we are all on - for a human touch, and Annie excels in that through her writing.
How many times do we take out the time to investigate the strange little things that move our heart and the unexpected places where we find love. We live in a time where “love” is a loaded word with a cliched meaning, sold to us as a romantic ideal with the same, one dimensional characters; pretty faces that are “smart, beautiful and funny” when in reality we encounter and experience love in myriad ways, each having the ability to surprise us and give us something to remember or to live for. There is no age for us to fall in love nor does the emotion care about propriety or social norms, and it certainly does not come announced. Sometimes you are just in love with someone’s words and the beautiful and thoughtful way that they use it convey ideas that explore a world that we all live in and give us hope because of our infinite capacity to love another human being in whatever form that it takes.
Annie’s stories are not teen romances that are aspirational and otherworldly, but they open up small little worlds that are hidden to us and makes us wonder about the stories of people who we meet in our everyday life. Her stories are filled with real people and they have the ability to make us think and challenge on how we perceive our own emotions and what love means to us. Sometimes, love can be as bizarre as being in love with a voice and our imaginations of that person behind that voice. Sometimes, opposites attract and a thrill seeker could be a perfect counterpart to a content man. Her stories are not just about the intriguing ways that people find love but is also perhaps an attempt to humanize stereotypes. Even though it is one of the weaker stories, we learn in one of them to empathise and appreciate the perspective of a woman who would traditionally be stereotyped as a loose and immoral woman.
Her stories bring out the quest we are all on - for a human touch, and Annie excels in that through her writing.
August 29, 2013
Don't go by the name when you pick up this book.
I will write more about it soon.
I will write more about it soon.
February 21, 2021
Love may exist anywhere and in any shape or form. And it does. All the time. Whether it follows the rules of love or not. It’s there.
The stories acknowledge the above. They depict love in its very natural form. Unadulterated.
These stories are antithesis of the M&B and their likes.
He and she, the characters not having been named, could be any of us. Read to find out if there’s a story similar to your own. A story that you may have hidden or buried deep somewhere. Yes, like your own stories, some of these may be dark, deep and melancholy. After all love is about many emotions, often akin to a roller coaster. If it is exhilarating, it is also painful.
Annie Zaidi is a people’s person. I wonder how much observation would have gone into behaviours, actions and lives of people to get so much insight as is visible in the stories collection. She does an excellent job with characterisation. They are so real, like us, like others around us. And hence the stories are as layered and nuanced as real life is.
The stories acknowledge the above. They depict love in its very natural form. Unadulterated.
These stories are antithesis of the M&B and their likes.
He and she, the characters not having been named, could be any of us. Read to find out if there’s a story similar to your own. A story that you may have hidden or buried deep somewhere. Yes, like your own stories, some of these may be dark, deep and melancholy. After all love is about many emotions, often akin to a roller coaster. If it is exhilarating, it is also painful.
Annie Zaidi is a people’s person. I wonder how much observation would have gone into behaviours, actions and lives of people to get so much insight as is visible in the stories collection. She does an excellent job with characterisation. They are so real, like us, like others around us. And hence the stories are as layered and nuanced as real life is.
May 5, 2021
What a fantastic collection of feelings that we dare not acknowledge even to ourselves. But in middle of the night, stripped of any pretense when all your true unvarnished stories come back, that's where this book finds a comfortable place. These are love stories in every form and nothing saccharine sweet about them.
May 22, 2013
First time I was actually looking forward to this reviewing section while reading a book. This section always make me nervous. I usually buy books after reading someone's review. I didn't really want someone to curse me. PS- I don't do that. Anyway, this one is an excellent read. Don't pick it if you're looking for a light and sweet stories with happy endings. There's nothing happy about this book. Well! Its mentioned on the cover. The stories are dark and you don't finish it once you close the book. It stays with you. Eats you up from inside. Thankfully, I forgot everything about it. A part of me is glad but I'll be reading it again. Not soon. Maybe when I'm really feeling happy about everything in general. Overall it was an excellent read. Life stories not love stories.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 15, 2020
Of little vignettes of love and longing and the many shades of love...Short stories about people who have no names, only identities. You could be the PhD student who is struggling with the fairy tales in her head or you could be the idealistic young man, an anarchist fighting for change. You could a bit of a woman who stays in marriage because she need economic stability or you are also bit of a man who finds solace in the bosom of his partner. You are probably the woman who listens to every train announcement with utmost concentration. You could be so many things in Annie Zaidi's love stories. You could be enough. You could voice out the little story you are otherwise too afraid to tell. You could be who you are in her stories and find space to be more if you want. 'How long did it take for her to turn into this creature with light eyes, irises ringed with grief?' If it is already not evident, I am in love with this woman's narrative style. What a way to write...Immensely loved these short glimpses into her characters and their lives!
May 24, 2017
Don't expect sweet romantic stories when you pick this book up. These tales are about heartbreak and marriage and divorce and motherhood, written for iPhone-tapping, selfiestick-shooting Facebook millennials. Although it's a breezy read, the he and she, him and her sentence construction gets too monotonous as a collection. Zaidi touches very relatable notes of the Delhi lifestyle and her stories are ripe with dialogues.
January 13, 2019
The first story, of a woman falling in love with the voice of a railway announcer, will always linger in my mind. There are other intense, beautifully narrated stories as well. Worth reading and thinking about.
Read
June 18, 2023loved some of these v much
August 30, 2013
The title of the book suggests, it’ll be a book with some mushy gushy feel good love stories, but that is definitely not the truth. The cover of the book though suggests that it is a different from the regular ones.
Annie Zaidi has a good hold of the language and has succeeded in keeping the reader engaged in the book throughout. There are total 14 stories as the name indicates. They are named as Love story #1, Love story #2 and so on, but each with a separate (and an interesting) subtitle which gives the gist of the story ahead. An interesting fact is that the stories are not serially ordered. The book starts with Love story #10 and ends with Love story #14. Cool, isn’t it? Another cool thing about the book is that the characters don’t have any names. It is either “he” or “she”. It makes a big difference while reading.
There’s a woman who‘s in love with the voice of the railway announcer whom she has never seen, a couple who have lost that special spark, a woman who falls in love with a dead police officer, a devoted wife who goes for Narcotics Anonymous meetings, a girl who deals with a sudden appearance of a lizard in her bathroom (strange, right?), a woman, painter by profession and her elderly neighbour, a girl, her separated and re-united parents, a young mother dealing with her husband and the post natal depression, friends who should have been lovers, a girl searching answers for herself, two strangers ending up a trek together... the book surprises you in a very great way. Each story is different from the other and after each story you end up thinking, “Arrey, aisa bhi ho sakta hai, maine socha hi nahi tha” (At least I did so)
You cannot tag the relationships depicted in the book in a particular way. They are warm, painful, searching, longing... To sum up, the book reminds me of the famous song by Gulzar ji :
“Sirf ehsaas hai yeh, rooh se mehsus karo..
Pyaar ko pyaar hi rehne do, koi naam na do..”
Annie Zaidi has a good hold of the language and has succeeded in keeping the reader engaged in the book throughout. There are total 14 stories as the name indicates. They are named as Love story #1, Love story #2 and so on, but each with a separate (and an interesting) subtitle which gives the gist of the story ahead. An interesting fact is that the stories are not serially ordered. The book starts with Love story #10 and ends with Love story #14. Cool, isn’t it? Another cool thing about the book is that the characters don’t have any names. It is either “he” or “she”. It makes a big difference while reading.
There’s a woman who‘s in love with the voice of the railway announcer whom she has never seen, a couple who have lost that special spark, a woman who falls in love with a dead police officer, a devoted wife who goes for Narcotics Anonymous meetings, a girl who deals with a sudden appearance of a lizard in her bathroom (strange, right?), a woman, painter by profession and her elderly neighbour, a girl, her separated and re-united parents, a young mother dealing with her husband and the post natal depression, friends who should have been lovers, a girl searching answers for herself, two strangers ending up a trek together... the book surprises you in a very great way. Each story is different from the other and after each story you end up thinking, “Arrey, aisa bhi ho sakta hai, maine socha hi nahi tha” (At least I did so)
You cannot tag the relationships depicted in the book in a particular way. They are warm, painful, searching, longing... To sum up, the book reminds me of the famous song by Gulzar ji :
“Sirf ehsaas hai yeh, rooh se mehsus karo..
Pyaar ko pyaar hi rehne do, koi naam na do..”
June 18, 2013
" Love is unselfish & unconditional. I can tell you a thousand things that its not, but not one,that it is."
Love stories is a beautiful collection.It portrayed many emotions and depths one plunges into. Desperation.. Solitude..Forgiveness..Fear..Resistance..Acceptance & all that there is.
Not a happy cocoon of tales but a wired frame of thoughts & boundaries that will grasp you.Don't pick up the book if you are looking for a romantic boy-girl encounter.Love stories is a different & difficult collection, that will let you wonder about it for a very long time.
Love stories is a beautiful collection.It portrayed many emotions and depths one plunges into. Desperation.. Solitude..Forgiveness..Fear..Resistance..Acceptance & all that there is.
Not a happy cocoon of tales but a wired frame of thoughts & boundaries that will grasp you.Don't pick up the book if you are looking for a romantic boy-girl encounter.Love stories is a different & difficult collection, that will let you wonder about it for a very long time.
March 14, 2013
Love stories with a difference. With a lot of feeling and only a little mush. Out of 14 stories, I've read 9 and found them fairly different from each other. The similarity was the man-woman dynamics. All have been worthy of mulling over. I take away one star only because personally I had no interest in the context of some stories but found them to be well written all the same.
The book has a simple but remarkable cover.
The book has a simple but remarkable cover.
January 2, 2013
An interesting collection of stories but very monotonously rendered.
January 9, 2014
The stories are not the run on the mill kinds. They are quite intense. Infact some went over my head as well. But overall I liked it.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews