CHEWING GUM by SHAKIL AHMED

Chewing gum by Shakil Ahmed is a reader's delight. It is an amazing book which deals with the psychological hidden dimensions of a modern and post modern man in a very subtle and artistic manner .Each and every short story of this collection is enriched with genuine literary virtues and contains elements of human experiences that one can relate to . Narrative of Shakil Ahmed is simple yet dense. At the same time it is full of internal conflicts and binary oppositions. It is wonderful to see how different emotions co-exist in the stories -comic and somber, rational and irrational, simple or complex philosophical and absurd – all float in the narratives as natural elements. They are in a flux, just like the life is, always a bundle of contradictions which is nothing but a bundle of the contradictions. Although these stories come in the zone of realism, they transcendent themselves of sheer realism and its monophonic style. The best part about the stories lie in the fact that one can find themselves as one of the character or the other because the premises and stories have been built so realistically. An easy-read for every age-group, this book is certainly for grabs!