About the Book: This book is a collection of short stories – seven, in all. Each one is different from others. But all of them are stories of ordinary people in the real world around us. So, even in a murder mystery like, The Labyrinth or a suspense thriller like, Not in the Name , the characters will appear real and the happenings relatable. Death on a Wedding Altar is a painful story of a migrant girl who suffered deep scar on her face in a communal riot in her erstwhile country and failed to cope up with the different realities in her life. Love in the times of Love Jihad tells the story of a defiant love between a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy in the backdrop of militant religious sentiments prevailing in the country. How a little street urchin exploits the unfulfilled emotions of love and affection of a highly successful but lonely woman and how he himself falls prey to the same emotions, is the story of The Tender strings of Life. Love once came… is a man's journey to his childhood village where he relives his memories and discovers some facets of his life which he never knew before. A woman’s spirited resolve to claw back to life when she realised that her marriage wasn’t working, is accounted in the story, The Buried Memories. A Lotus in the Muck depicts the story of a young girl, who was much abused mentally and physically, and was forced to live a life of disrepute, yet kept her soul unsullied and goodness in her heart intact.

A Lotus in the Muck by Sukumar k. Biswas [Paperback]