✍️By Special Correspondent
Padmini Dutta Sharma’s ‘Love by a thousand cuts’ is a fiercely objective collection of short stories and poems angling various dimensions of love. ‘Nostalgia’ is about a woman that eternally waits near the phone for her lover till they unite after a lot of upheavals and trauma, but we know not if that was love, dependability, empathy, companionship or merely a social agreement. Love is rarely kind and barely dependable or why would the ‘Beduin’ go missing suddenly?
According to Padmini, Love mostly acts as a temporary sedative, to resurface in all its splendor after a while when things apparently seem a bit settled apparently. ‘Love by a thousand cuts’ is a magnificently mordant work, with hypnotic nihilistic depictions of people trapped in strange, lonely, dystopian situations, surrounded by unforgiving vicissitudes . According to Padmini Dutta Sharma, love does not heal, transcend or emancipate the lovers from the horrors they face during their overtly passionate phase; rather, it evokes unbearable memories and despicable moments of relentless pain after the lovers part ways. The blind belief that love forgives, is simply a myth that has been created to help the lovers to move on, from the shackles of blinded fettered love. Love happens only after a thousand cuts and profuse bleeding, to stay momentarily like a butterfly for creating an artificial euphoria filled with dopamine and adrenal rush, and then there is the inevitable nose drive, a downward plunge from the hill top into the dead pan of hysteria – the lethal trap from where there is no escape.
Stories and poems in ‘Love by a thousand cuts’ has a lot of drama and suspense complemented by high voltage romance; the ingenious connections between startlingly unrelated subjects make the book absolutely astounding. Padmini ‘s book is a complete departure from the run of the mill types; every piece is intense and holds a lot of grey in them.
About The Author
Padmini Dutta Sharma has carved an exceptional niche for herself in the literary world through distinctive portrayal of different genre books using her non conventional style; that range from fiction to non fiction; poems to short stories, essays to novels. Being a profound and prolific writer and columnist she has always lend her thoughts and pen to ongoing social issues of her time. Love and satire intertwined as we know by now is her primary forte but Dutta Sharma likes to keep them subtle and elusive. Although her first career choice was journalism she subsequently switched to literary writing, selecting books as her preferred medium for interacting with her readers. Her earlier books on different genres have received rare reviews from the media and literary laureates especially because of her incisive analysis of unrequited love; also considered a hard boiled writer of loveless magic. Her writing always carries that rare sense of belonging from a distance; Padmini is like one of the key transitional figures between literary realism and literary fancy.
