Shivangi’s Reviews > Heart Lamp: Selected Stories > Status Update

translator's note has all my heart :"))))

the last story did not work for me at all, i am perhaps not the right audience for it. I suppose it would make sense if Banu wrote it for an audience, believing she could sow seeds of such thinking... but the undertone of passivity really repulsed me at some point, which is a reaction worth interrogating. it feels lacking, perhaps. Not that this cannot be a real story, but unsure what the reader is to do with it.

Arabic teacher and Gobi manchuri... feels like Banu's story. T and I have often laughed about Blr's obsession with the dish and was very loudly amused at the initial parts of the story, and then shocked at how deceptive appearances can be. why are men.

shroud is... "900 chuhey khaa kar billi hajj ko chali".

A taste of heaven had some delightful writing on the most common story of desi households - simple explanations of women's anger, that bursts like a volcano and takes everyone by surprise. Second half does take one by surprise, as Bi-Dadi emerges from silence and erasure, and lapses into a tragi-comedy that one does not see coming.

Soft whispers is such a sweet portrait of a childhood, if only superficially. In revisiting a memory drenched in emotions of all kinds, Banu also opens it up for us by giving us an unfiltered narration of events. Certain small details added such depth to this nuanced representation,
"Ammi contorted her face, wrinkled her nose, and tried to scold me for my laziness with her eyes".

High-heeled shoe lost its plot for me. Naseema's trope wore me out fairly quickly, and although the story unfolds layers of familial relationships panning out the way they do, it does not finish its trail of thought? Arifa's story emerging from the periphery does jolt the reader, but it does not lead anywhere? not even the kind of thud that most other stories so far have.

I read Heart Lamp with a little extra bit of care, it tied up many themes together that Banu covers over the rest of her stories. a torment - to be haunted by voices like that - following us everywhere we go, and swallow us whole, unless love save us.

A decision of the heart is so dramatic and yet so real that it kept me hooked, although just as stumped as some of its characters, about how could any of this be. Her writing trumps everything, though. A treat to see our worlds reflected with all their complex vagaries and forces. Red lungi could easily fall flat for those unfamiliar with this side of the world, it started out very strong, but didn't keep up that way

Stone slabs... delivered its punch with a force, although one sees it coming, even if not consciously. Fire rain gets to the complexity of this social fabric of ours, a depiction of what spaces are occupied by whom and how, and also sets up stage for the theme to be carried in the next story, Black Cobras, which so far has angered me the most. Loved these last two.