This is a selected anthology of translation of short stories of Jahan Ara Siddiqui. The subjects are diverse. A middle class woman would migrate to a distant country that was her ‘dream land’. It took her a lifetime to realize such an island did not exist. ‘Trapped’ would depict how the top bureaucrats became political slaves to fulfill their ambition. ‘Profession’ speaks about the helplessness of a shelterless village girl during the famine of 1974. A police officer is intoxicated by ‘Power’, believing he owns the chair he sits on. But finally he realizes that power can be so short-lived and dangerous.
The story ‘Mother’ is most captivating. A poor divorced mother fights on to go through the labyrinth of justice system for her rights to be with her child. In the heart rending story of the ‘Prisoner’, a women is compelled to live with the murderer of her child, as she has nowhere else to go. A village girl becomes victim of an acid attack. But the road to ‘Justice’ is long, costly and risky. With money, the rich and influential culprits can go scot free. ‘The Reverse flow’ is an analysis of man’s psychology of middle age crisis.
