Once A year It Is March and Other Stories

This collection of short stories by a prolific contemporary writer deals with the economic and the social aspects of life of different strata of people. This also brings out to the socialfore the hard and naked truths of life from which we tend to shy away. The salient characteristics of life are well illustrated by the various stories where all the characters go through a turmoil of a variety of mental upheavals which are bound to leave a deep imprint on the minds of the readers as to

• the pain and turmoil of a devoted wife trying to hide her husband’s folly;
• the earnest efforts made by a son to be like his father who abhors him;
• how a woman, after forty years of happy married life, could not bring herself to accept the harsh reality that her husband was dead;
• how a loving man becomes on automation amassing wealth, so much so that the death of his only child matters little to him;
• how a lonely wife seeks other means of quenching her thirst of love

and many more instances to make us realistic towards life.

Achla Bansal was born in Delhi in 1946. She did her education in Delhi graduating from Miranda House in Economics. Then she did Journalism from Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, securing, a first division. It was in 1980 that she took to writing and since then has been writing short stories which have been published in various popular and prestigious newspapers and magazines including Indian Literature, Sahitya Akademi’s Literary Journal. Besides, writing short stories she writes middles for the dailies and fiction for children.

**Contents and Sample Pages**