A proper novel is one you settle into, like a journey on the Grand Trunk Express, marking your territory and living another life for the duration. A short story is more like getting dropped off at the bus stop. Chhimi Tenduf-La’s Loyal Stalkers offers the charms of both. This short novel, set in Sri Lanka, is constructed like a jigsaw puzzle. Each chapter stands alone as a short story, but together they form a coherent larger narrative.
That narrative starts with an unmarried teenager having a baby and then being forced to give it up. Much of her story remains untold—why do her parents treat her like a stranger and blame her for having been raped? But that lacuna somehow sharpens the effect of what remains. In another segment, a personal trainer stalks a single mother, hiding out in her house, even feeding her infant. When he is caught, it sets many other events in motion.
The shocker in this novel is the story of a man and woman, strangers to each other, who wake up after a torrid night to a police SMS asking the public to be alert for a killer with a devil’s mask tattoo. They lock eyes as realisation dawns, and a cinematic chase follows. But even this set piece links closely to the other stories, of a security guard pretending to be a policeman for his little son’s sake; of a dog’s near death, revival, and second death; of an autistic boy whose parents withhold love; and of a maid’s life in an upper class household. The unusual friendship between two boys who bond over cricket is another thread that runs through the stories.
Tenduf-La plays with timelines and perspectives, and some of the stories are worth coming back to after we’ve connected the dots. More than one character describes Sri Lanka as a small island, where people gossip and know what goes on in everyone’s lives. The reader of this book feels some of that. We keep bumping into characters we’ve seen somewhere before, and with each encounter we know more.
Loyal Stalkers; Chhimi Tenduf-La, Macmillan, ₹499.
The writer is author of Three Seasons: Notes from a Country Year .
