Mystery of the missing cap and other stories

by Manoj Das

English (translation)

225 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1995

About the author

Manoj Das, a prolific author, is among India's foremost short story writers. He writes both in Oriya (Odia) and English, and is a Professor of English at the Sri Aurobindo International University, Pondicherry.

Manoj Das was born in a small coastal village named Shankari in Balasore district, Orissa State. Since 1963, he has been an ashramite at Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. He is presently concentrating on writing novels.

Manoj Das is perhaps the foremost bilingual Oriya writer and a master of dramatic expression both in his English and Oriya short stories and novels. He says that:

"Characters follow the theme of a story, and the words are merely added by author to represent the thoughts of the character."

That is the precise reason why Das's characters in fiction are from so many varied backgrounds, and display many different dimensions of human nature. He is a philosopher, a thinker-writer whose works can be defined as a quest for finding the eternal truth in everyday situations.

Reviews

[KhepiAri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of three stories, they are the quintessential Manoj Das stories. First, A story of village that cares about a ghost. Second, A mock investigative journalistic report renditioning on Animal Far narratology, and finally story of a never spelled out Gandhian Political Host and consequences of his one lie.

Got introduced to major pillar of Indian short stories in my graduation years. Ever since then I have been trying to get hold of his books. Sadly the circulation of translated work is rare! Manoj Das has the same earthly essence in his writing as R K Narayan had, but Das's unnamed Malgudi is far more bleak, existential, political and cut throat in argumentation.

Each story slaps you hard, it questions the true purpose of history through a dead anglo-Indian ghost. He asks us what we learned from Emergency and mocks our ingrained obsession for dynastic rulers. He challenges the human values Gandhi preached and brings back the truth - even the most honest have to lie like Yudhishter, and it's their petty honesty and pitiful ideologies that brings them their greatest sorrow.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

Goodbye, darling ghost (aka Farewell to a ghost) --3
Into the heart of Luvurva (N/A)
The mystery of the missing cap --2
***
The crocodile's lady --2
Miss Moberly's targets --2
The submerged valley --3