The Fate of Butterflies

by Nayantara Sahgal

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77 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 10, 2019

About the author

Nayantara Sahgal is an Indian writer in English. Her fiction deals with India's elite responding to the crises engendered by political change. She was one of the first female Indian writers in English to receive wide recognition. She is a member of the Nehru family (not the Nehru-Gandhi family as she so often points out), the second of the three daughters born to Jawaharlal Nehru's sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.
She was awarded the 1986 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, for her novel Rich Like Us (1985)awarded by India's National Academy of Letters.

Reviews

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a timely, moving, yet flawed novella.
Following the actions of a small set of characters in Delhi, veteran writer Sahgal paints an India snatched from the headlines, tweaked just a little further into a dystopia alarmingly close to reality. An academic has written a speculative work on affecting social change, which is hailed as a manual by a kind of Hindutva Machiavelli, who invites him into the inner circles of fascism. At the same time, an arms dealer of Russian origin is thinking, perhaps for the first time, of retirement, and how he will make a reckoning of his career. They both encounter a social worker who was the victim of a mass rape of non-Hindu women by a saffron mob. A gay couple decide to have a marriage ceremony in defiance of the new conservatism sweeping society.

Although set among fairly privileged circles, the narrative and its characters have a foot in the world of the precarious, of daily wage labourers, immigrants and those who have no choice but to comply. In these uncertain times, Sahgal funds both redemption and perdition, hope and loss. Its a wonderfully economical and canny snapshot of an India barely 2 steps to the right of our own.

At the same time, there is a bare expository tone that sometimes sucks the air out of the narrative. Some dialogue is stilted, jarringly on the nose. Moments of great emotive power are followed by dry descriptive passages that relate conversations and interior monologues. These are common drawbacks in a certain generation of Indian English writing.

This stylistic caveat aside, I highly recommend this slim, unflinching and terribly real vision of our grim times.

[Avishek Bhattacharjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is absolute truth, this is the current India depicted so aptly.
Still NS is politically active as a writer and the qualities are evident in this novella.The Fate Of Butterflies follows the fate of a close group of characters,their political lineage, caste and surrounding. The brevity of the book doesn’t allow room for many layers to the plot but what awaits is clear.
Think!!
Read and read more.

[Jasmine Jeba Malar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story is reflection on Contemporary India- political, religious unrest and on the never ending war among humans from Spartans to now in various ways. But the narration, description and the soliloquy is blunt and dull could have been better for such a political novel.

[Nivedita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nayantara Sahgal's The Fate of Butterflies is a piece of pointed commentary on the ongoing violence so ubiquitous across the world today. The violence stems from some people's collective lust to be immortalized in the realms of history, and is affected by communal hatred, ethnic purgation, religious difference, linguistic differences, gender-based discrimination, in fact, any difference in some people's lifestyle, life choices, norms or cultural beliefs sparks both derision and anxiety in others.
The novella is a perfect proof of Sahgal's piercing insight into the contemporary political situation around the globe where there is, at present, an increasing paranoia against solidarity and cohesion. The world leaders, if they find themselves sitting at Arthur's fabled round table, would be debating how to exterminate half of the world population citing reasons from history and proving quite fervently why the right (read: right wing) is right, and the left (read: the remaining) are unwanted (pun intended).
A must read.
.

[Ken Langer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nayantara Sahgal has written another gem of a book. The author has captured the horror of our times in a story where ordinary people become victims of nationalist fervor. I only wish she had spent more time in the heads of the main characters as they undergo and are forced to live with the aftermath of mob violence, rape, and other atrocities committed in the name of religion.

[Venkataraghavan Srinivasan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Succinct and stark. A powerful snapshot that portrays a true and believable grim reality. Stings like a bee while floating like a butterfly. Also a victim of its own scope and structure, leading to rapid progressions through explanatory passages. Recommended for a quick weekend read.

[Akash Balwante · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dystopian tale of torture from extreme right wing ideology party by Pandit Nehru’s niece. It’s really appreciated to write such book at 90+ age. But the narration and story telling has flaws which makes this reading boring.

[Alar_bloomswithbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5

[Iqra Tasmiae]

Found here https://indianculturalforum.in/2019/0...