Lockdown Liaisons Book 1: Leaving and Other Stories

By Shobhaa De

As the world is shaken by a virus, Shobhaa De – a writer who understands the human heart and how it beats – felt the need to document not just what she is going through personally but what the entire world is experiencing. And out of this need emerged many unique narratives ...
 
Lockdown Liaisons is a collection of short stories, from the varying perspectives of both men and women – young and old, brave and cowardly, cheerful and weighed down – each story an unique offering from a writer who understands how very fragile human relationships can be as they break, suffer and are redefined under trying circumstances.
 
Explore, read and understand the subterranean world of shifting emotions during Covid-19, through stories that will speak to you. There is a woman with a young child who discovers that she doesn’t love her husband after all, there is a migrant worker who has to make a tough choice as he gets ready to walk hundreds of uncertain kilometres homewards. And many more. But what binds these stories together is love. These are stories that show how Covid-19 is affecting the hearts of hundreds of people as they struggle to make sense of altered circumstances, of the ‘new normal’ that will emerge in a post-Covid world.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: May 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9789386797971

Shobhaa De

Shobhaa De is a widely read  author and columnist. She is known for her outspoken, irreverent views, making her one of India's most respected opinion shapers. Her writings have consistently chronicled her deeply felt socio-political-cultural concerns.  

Book preview

Leaving and Other Stories

Lockdown Liaisons

Book 1

Shobhaa Dé

Leaving and Other Stories

Lockdown Liaisons

A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

May 2020

Cocooned in our small little worlds yet living through the most precarious and awful times – this has got to be a first in the collective memory of the whole wide world. Untouched by the footsteps of migrant workers in the hot sun we rave and rant on social media. And as always what helps us to retain our sanity in moments like this are words. Our own words and words from loved ones but even more than that, words from gifted writers who spin stories out of universal experiences, from thoughts and ideas half-formed in our minds.

Simon & Schuster India is happy to bring to you short stories by the inimitable Shobhaa De as she captures the fragile zeitgeist of the pandemic in her own unique way – through stories that don’t provide an escape into la la land but rather stories of love that will make you sometimes smile, sometimes frown but at all times understand the subterranean world of shifting human emotions. The author, and her stories, don’t shy away from the tremulous uncertainties of the world as we know but rather help us to confront and understand it all, just a little bit better.

There is a feisty woman in the pages of this book who is sick of taking care of the house and her husband and baby, there is a migrant worker who has to choose between his lover and family as he gets ready to trek to his village hundreds of miles away, there is a woman torn between family and what she owes herself and there is a man who can’t deal with his wife’s denial of his sexual needs in these times of stress.

I hope all of you enjoy reading the stories in this anthology and remember in these difficult times to be kind to yourselves, to the people you meet in the pages of this book and to those in your life and in the world outside.

AFTER THIS, DUBAI?

See. From the day we decided to get married, I had told my hubby, ‘No kids!’

I liked my life, my job, my friends… I didn’t want to be stuck at home changing nappies. He agreed. Then he cheated. Usual

Reviews for Lockdown Liaisons Book 1

[Manmohan Khemka · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nice lockdown stories. Good range of emotions in different culture and different socities