The Inevitable

by Ashay Abbhi

“The Inevitable” is a melange of fictional pieces of prose that explore the plethora of human emotions in the face of challenging situations. Celebrating the humane angle, the stories alternate between noir and drama, etching deep creases of the darker side of human emotions while painting vibrant shades of love, poignancy and irony all the same. Interspersed with thought-provoking poetry, each story is introduced with a poetic prelude that gives the reader an insight into all that’s coming next.

104 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2014

Reviews

[Sanjana Bhimrao · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first Goodreads Review. I hope to write many more this year, and make it a point to read more books sincerely.

In 2016, my goal was to read only Indian authors. I don't believe that Indian authors start and end with Chetan Bhagat, or Amitav Ghosh. I believe in the real writer who is influenced by global and Indian elements in his writing. For that, I decided to make my purchases of books offline, at the cafe-and-shop outlets. The first book I found this year was The Inevitable, and I decided that it will be the first one I would read (my year started late, okay, but still). I bought it at Chamiers Cafe in Chennai in January.

The book's cover is arresting. I love solitary places. I enjoy images better if they have a vintage and sepia finish. At first I thought that the cover was all about solitude, but the short stories and poetry made me see how much thought has gone into the cover design. The arch is the inevitable gateway that we all walk through at some point or the other in our life. I thoroughly liked the book length - it was just perfect because when you're going in for a collection of short stories, it is nice to know that they are really short. But, once I started reading, I felt like I wanted more of the author's stories to read. This is a dilemma I really wish had a solution... Maybe it's time to wait for the author's next collection.

The book starts with his poem on imagination. It is a very thought provoking beginning that teaches you how to look at life with imaginative eyes. Everything from birth to death, the author has set the stage to make us think and comprehend. It was a very interesting beginning. The line “For imagine you must, death, to live until” is actually the best line that shows how mature the author is.
The book has poems and stories in alternate presentation, so that way, you get a good amount of time to switch out of one story to the next. The first poem, 9th Cross, speaks to the dilemmas of a confused mind. I always have problems deciding upon anything, and this poem showed how the author sent his caution to the winds as he let his confusion go, in and out of the maze of life. It is very touching to see how ultimately one wants to be in the comforting arms of their loved one. I also liked another poem called The Search for Love. I love the rich vibrancy of earth and Indiannness in that poem – the author has manufactured a whole universe of union of love, and has propped a very powerful backdrop of passion behind the poem. A third poem that I really loved in the collection was I will take you away. It left me crying. Surely the author has a kind and passionate heart. Blessed are those that know it.
Among the stories, I would advice anyone to begin with the story called Love for Tea. It was really something else to see how much love makes one do for another, and at the end of the day, death comes to all of us, but all that matters is what we gave and got in return in the pursuit of love and care. The second story that I recommend for the top spot, along with Love for Tea is The Night it Rained. The touching embrace of care and protectiveness of the narrator made me cry. Infact I set the book aside to spend some time within the story in my mind. Another story I would like to mention is The Yellow Wall. The story haunts you in a very touching way, and all you can do is to sense the intensity of curiosity.
It is very difficult to be a poet and an author with equal ease and skill. Poetry needs you to say lots with very little, and prose flips the coin on that. The author has been extremely successful in achieving this. The choice of words and the author’s turn of phrase is excellent. It was a pleasant surprise to finish the book in about four-five days (I am not counting the time I spent with my children who are here for the holidays). Ashay Abbhi is definitely here to stay.

[Ma La · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading The Inevitable in three hours. It is such a good, gripping book. The most refreshing feature is that the book lets you take a break from a story with a short poem that is full of poignancy and meaningfulness. The lines in the poetry are very memorable, and the prose is very rich and well crafted. My favourite stories in the book are Darkness, The Yellow Wall, Ashes of Bad Writers and Love for Tea. The poem The Search for Love is a highly mature piece of poetry. I will recommend the book to everyone.

[Divya Nambiar · Rating 3 out of 5]

It often takes just a letter to make or break a word, in its placement within a sentence. Those sentences then get together to tell a story. Having the power or rather, the knack of such placements gives a writer the power to conquer the world, by way of words, 'mere' words if they can even be called so!

A house on the mountains, amidst acres of tea plantation, the pitter patter of raindrops as they hit the roof and the surroundings, a hot cup of chai(tea) and your thoughts for company- sounds serene and a perfect scene for many. But wait. Think about someone who never liked chai. That is 'The Inevitable' for you. It's about the uncommon, the less thought about angle that exists albeit silently, yet inevitably.

Darkness, Bashir Bhai Ghadi Dega Kya, Kalimpong remain some of my personal favourites from amongst the bouquet of short stories presented in the book. Just like flowers arranged in a bouquet, each story has its own charm, structure, beauty and an origin that makes it unique. The poem that precedes each story seems to be the origin of the story that follows (even though the author claims otherwise).

Thank you Ashay for a colourful bouquet of flowers that celebrates not just life but also the stillness, silence and yet the overpowering deafness of darkness and death.

The stories take more than few minutes to grip the reader. If you have the patience to let the tales transport you into their world to leave you at a wholly different level, go ahead! This one's for you.

-Divya Nambiar (divyagnambiar93@gmail.com)

Author of the Book:
Other contributions by the author:

[Janhvi Pant · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well framed collections of poems and short stories. The former always ties up with the latter in most sets though it may take the reader some thought to find that connection. This in itself allows the person's imagination to do the work and that is a great feat for an author.

[Radhika Manoharan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a fan of off-beat publishing houses and the books they come out with. When I saw The Inevitable on the shelves of the book shop I go to, I had no doubts about making the purchase. It was inevitable indeed. This is my first review outside of my professional reviewing capacity. Now having hung my robes there, I am now here on Good Reads.

Judging a book by its cover invariably does tend to happen. I try not to - but when a cover begins to beckon you, you cannot ignore the book for long, try as you might. The Inevitable has a very well done cover. The sepia tones through a black and white window, followed by an arch way is very delightfully justified by the theme of the book. After reading the book, you will understand that it talks about death in a renewed light, and the use of the archway is akin to the use of the "veil" and the "gateway" euphemisms for death. The title is written in bold, and in a very unique way. It augurs well for the publishing industry to take a leaf out of this one for the thought behind the cover.

Moving on, the book is a mix of poetry and prose. I am not a fan of poetry in general, but the collection in The Inevitable is the lone exception to the rigidity with which I observe that rule. Every poem is a preface to the story that follows. I really marvel at the author's thought process and intelligence - and if I ever have a chance to talk to him, I'd want to ask if he planned it this way, or if things just fell into place. It is uncanny how each poem perfectly fits the story that follows after it, and it is even more exhilarating to see how each poem is really a preview of the story. Even when you read a racy story like The Escape - which is a clever break amidst all the heavy stories, by the way - you can't help but marvel at the poetry that preceded it.

The stories themselves are a mixed bag. First of all, every story has something in common: they are dark, a little scary (especially The Yellow Wall) and very strong. Every story takes a look at death from a renewed perspective, and every story has a lesson in death. The Night it Rained and The Love for Tea prove with effortless ease that the author is a romantic at heart, and is reminiscent of the matter-of-fact approach to love that is characteristic of Erich Segal. The Escape and The Ashes of Bad Writers reflects on the dark undercurrents of crime - but from two very interesting points of view. The Ashes of Bad Writers really does give you ideas. Bashir Bhai Ghadi Dega Kya, Coffee at Midnight, Departed from Life and Just another Day make you wonder about the sheer idleness that we have all learned to embrace. We revel in the mundane, and do not enjoy the essence of life. Death is as matter-of-fact as life is, but life can be so much nicer if we rise above the mundane. I had an eye-opening experience when I read these stories, and I have made a personal commitment to myself to live life fully. Then come the absolute treats in this book: Darkness and The Yellow Wall. The contrast between both stories explores many layers of reality. It is interesting because we see so many chances in life to interpret things correctly, to take things the right way, and to lead life in the face of adversity without being struck down. But still, we tend to make it a point to choose to do otherwise. Finally, Kalimpong. As a journalist who wrote extensively on regional issues for local vernaculars, I have understood the value of real facts being ignored, and the impact it has on the bigger picture. The North Eastern region in India is not just neglected, but completely disrespected. I hope that readers imbibe from Kalimpong, and make a commitment to stand up for a part of their country that is burning.

Over all, I enjoyed The Inevitable. I would recommend it to anyone - especially the mainstream publishing houses with this note: "Please look at manuscripts like this one, not the outright nonsense that most of your greasemills churn."

[Arvind Passey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does Ashay Abbhi go around with severed hands?
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Arvind Passey reviews the book on 27 March 2015
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Besides the question that the title poses, others could be: ‘Do book reviewers always have murder in their thoughts?’ Or ‘Why do writers get unreadable stuff published?’ Or ‘Is every reader qualified to call a book bad or good?’ Or ‘Is a book that disgusts one reader end up disgusting every other?’ These questions have come up in my mind because one of the stories in ‘The Inevitable’ written by Ashay Abbhi prompted them. ‘Ashes of bad writers’ is one of the stories in the book and I interpret it as the author’s definition of a book reviewer who finally decides to write his own story.

I wonder why the cover has such a lovely photograph showing a dilapidated entrance into a thoughtful probability with the golden yellow hue of an autumn dusk representing stories that embrace the cold chill of creativity smeared all over with gruesomeness. Yes, I wonder why. It is time that publishers and their illustrators and cover designers stop picking up the first one in their stock of royalty-free pictures and convert it into another cover. I hope this paragraph stares at the publisher with bloodshot eyes, just as much as the way the stories peered into mine. And I can tell you that I am not Bashir who ‘decided to look directly into his eyes to tell him to buzz off. But as soon as I gazed back, a chill ran through my spine. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he had just had a glass of blood. Had he???’

The stories are of encounters… no, not the way the police will interpret them, but as experiences of someone who almost certainly could not be just any of us.
This just means that either the author has a pretty ripe imagination or the rest of us haven’t travelled enough to have had similar encounters. This is what I realised by the time I had read the third story and I knew I wanted to read them all and travel to a land where Ashay had been to. Look, I’m sure you’ve never visited a small town with all walls painted white except one that is painted yellow and where the headman in the first story ‘stumbled upon the pile of dead bodies right below it.’ Nor are you the sort who goes to meet authors who you think haven’t written well and like the protagonist of one of the stories, produce ‘a machete from underneath his shirt and in one swift motion cut both her hands off.’ The stories have death and darkness trailing them but thankfully none of them are too long and end before you remind yourself to read a few jokes whatsapped to you before you go off to sleep.

This collection of stories has an umbilical connection, I believe, to the poems that come before each. If you do happen to get this book to read, try reading the poem just before the story and see if your mind also connects poetry to prose. I have loved concluding that all things gory are the prime domain of the story and poetry can, at best, point out to them in a gently murderous way. Well, the poetry in the book isn’t particularly brilliant but the idea of having poetry and prose in an inter-connected way in a book is, let me insist, worth a thought...

...please read the complete review on my blog.
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Does Ashay Abbhi go around with severed hands?
http://passey.info/2015/03/does-ashay...
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www.passey.info
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[Tia Harish · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Sakshi Nanda's review of The Inevitable and picked up a copy. Inspired by her, I wrote a book review in the hope that it will justify my interest.

There is a thriving sense of life even if death is the master character in all the stories. The opening poem, Imagine, is like the opening act for the entire book, and it sets the stage very effectively. Every poem and story combination that follows is a shuttle between the vagaries of life and the macabre dimensions that colour these lives. There is a measure of calculated insanity in the writing, some may call it passion or even intrigue, but to me, it speaks the language of curiosity and uncanny fascination. The author is obviously not just fascinated by death, but is also experimentally curious with a sense of eagerly wanting to dig deeper to understand what it really is. The stories titled The Yellow Wall, Darkness and The New Year’s Eve reflect this tendency. On the other hand, grounded in the materialistic realm, there are stories that talk about the egregious failings that mankind is used to in everyday living: which manifests itself in the stories called Coffee at Midnight, A Day and Living to Die. The mildest and most jocular form of this exploratory tangent is seen in the form of The Escape, which is a bit of a derisive mockery of the way in which we function in the face of authority and violence, and the most extreme and gory rendition is Ashes of Bad Writers. The crown jewels are the stories with the romantic edge: The Night it Rained and Love for Tea. The author has definitely understood what love is, and has written these stories from a very personal angle. That he cherishes someone deeply is evident – as the shades of the lone two female characters with a fully built persona in the book bear a striking similarity – one, a younger version of the other. She is strong, but soft, and is the apple of the protagonist’s eye, to the point that he would do anything for her. That much is evident to the discerning eye – to say any more would be to make surmises that border on presumptions which I will hold back on.

The Inevitable is not a book for just anyone and everyone. A reader needs to have a certain maturity within, a discerning eye that will encourage them to see death as art rather than indulge in macabre musings, and a bit of a willingness to go along with something dark. In that sense, it might not be a book for everyone.

Short stories are like a box of assorted chocolates. Some have liqueur, some come with nuts. Some alternate with dark chocolate. Some have light milk chocolate. Some come with fruity centres. All in all, it is an enjoyable experience. You can go through an entire box and savour all different kinds without getting fed up. Ashay Abbhi’s The Inevitable is a box of Godiva’s luxury chocolates: every poem and story is magnificently written.

[Sylvia Sh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Inevitable is one of the best books I have read about Death, in a long time. The other benchmark I have is Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, where Death tells the story - but in The Inevitable, Death tells you more than one story, and in all these stories, Death is actually, well, humane. The characters are relateable, and the thought behind each story makes you want to revisit them again, and again, and again.

[Sashankh Kale · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Inevitable made a very good read. It's a mix of short-stories and poetry and the author strikes a chord with both. He creates beautiful imageries with his narrative. The writing is free-flowing; the characters are believable; and the stories convey a wide range of emotions without being emotionally manipulative.
Hope to read more by Ashay Abbhi in the future.