If It Is Sweet

by Mridula Koshy

In If It Is Sweet, precisely etched characters collide, the blind suddenly seeing the blind. Mridula Koshy plumbs the chasms across which they stare, asking the question: what is it people see when they see one another? Her characters are proximate, though from vastly different class backgrounds. Servants and mistresses. Middle-class insomniacs wandering the same footpaths on which labourers wake to care for their sleepless infants. An old man, his maid, and a koodawallah, and a conversation that ends in both insight and blindness. If It is Sweet does not set out to transport the reader to another world. It is one rooted in an unsettled world; it intends to unsettle

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Mridula Koshy is the author of If It Is Sweet(Tranqubar Press), a collection of short stories. If It Is Sweet won the 2009 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2009 Vodafone Crossword Book Prize.

She lives in New Delhi with her poet-schoolteacher partner and three exceptionally wonderful children.

She was many other things before she became a writer: a cashier at a Kentucky Fried Chicken,swap-meet sales clerk, backstage dresser at fashion shows,waitress who set a table cloth on fire, polisher of silverware in the back room for many months afterward, writing adviser, a professional advocate of multiculturalism (it was the late 80s), a painter (not of the fine arts variety), receptionist at a law firm (fired for losing phone calls), collator of tax forms, union organizer, community organizer, reading fairy at the library.

Reviews

[Abeer Hoque · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I had taken notes while reading Mridula Koshy's gorgeous short story collection, If It Is Sweet. There were so many many beautiful lines, all telling stories of those caught in the inevitable fissures of cities and relationships. The breadth and depth of character, scene, and geography displayed from story to story were awesomely lush and astonishing.

I found a few of the stories disjointed and thus difficult to get a handle on, but even those were usually thrilling and intimate throughout: "Jeans" (which was also playful and funny), "Today Is the Day" (very dark), and "Not Known" (which gave me pangs). Ms. Koshy plays with structure and type in unexpected ways, and there were also elements of the surreal, like in "Companion" and "Los Angeles" (though in the latter, I felt the italicised angel bits a bit jarring).

My favourite stories included the lovely tragic "Stray Blades of Grass," the very first story, "The Good Mother" which was so sad yet so sexy at the same time, and "Passage" which broke my heart. I had previously read "The Large Girl" in a Zubaan anthology and loved reading it again. Here are its last lines:

"A thousand and one chances will come and go in this small city, in this small world. I will never see you again."

Such a polished debut. I'll be looking forward to the next.

[Dhruv Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book, compelling and effective in portraying well - developed, true to life characters and their lives

[Kirti Singhal · Rating 2 out of 5]

'If it is sweet' is the compilation of 17 short stories, should appreciate the concept finding of the author. She has chosen very different themes for her stories, I like the uniqueness of her stories and the character were truly real and amazing. I have not come across many writers to pick up the characters like she has created.
But most of the stories are vague and makes it difficult to put together the sequence of the story.
Characterization is beautiful but most of stories leave you wondering if it is done.
Tough to comprehend for the ones who like to read easy and simple short stories

[Q · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only read the first four stories, I think. There were some powerful ideas and some beautiful lines, but mainly I felt that these stories could use a bit more work. The "jeans" story in particular was really disjointed, it wasn't clear who the characters were - it was really just a few scenes stuck together. But I did like the second story and the one called "The Large Girl".

[Fenmura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vividly lived heartache. Living, trying, despite the world.