Reflections

A chiaroscuro of the city of Jammu that is and was decades ago, Reflections (originally published in Dogri as Cheten Diyan Galiyan) contains snippets of the life of a sensitive soul identifying completely with the soil that has nurtured it. To Mangotra, his beloved city is a living entity with its own heart, lungs and dubious passages through which runs its life. It is peopled by the sorts of Master Jawahar Lal who offer free coaching to their students and regale them with crunchy parathas and delicious Kashmiri kehwa: poets who see nothing wrong with eulogising this or that caste; a grandfather who insists on having his school-going grandson's hair cropped closely and so on. Mangotra's city is a city of crumbling palaces and a beautiful river turned murky by the denizens who don't care, a city of celebrations and kite-flying where girls were once worshipped as goddesses. Neither nostalgia that paints the past with the fond colours of goodness, nor a cynical blackening of a milieu gone by, this volume indeed is a four de force in the fine art of reflection.

Lalit Mangotra (b. 1944, Jammu) refired from the University of Jammu after a fruitful career in teaching and research. An acclaimed short story writer, poet, dramatist, critic and essayist, he was awarded the Best Book Award by the J&K State Academy of Art, Culture and Languages in the year 2000 for his compilation of short stories Zameen. He was again awarded Best Book Award for his collection of essays Cheten Diyan Galiyan by the State Academy in 2010. He received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award in 2011 for this book. Mangotra is a recipient of the prestigious State Government award, 2009 for his contributions to the advancement of literature and culture.

Suman K. Sharma is a translator, essayist and newspaper columnist. He has published a novel each in English and Hindi. He has translated into English a collection of Dogri folk tales. His other translations include Shailender Singh's Dogri novel Hashiye Par and a collection of Dogri short stories Ajje Di Dogri Kahani.

**Contents and Sample Pages**