Ashoak Upadhyay

The Hungry Edge Ashoak Upadhyay

What would you do when you have to take sides, apportion blame? You want to cry for the innocent, but you cannot decide who is guilty. Thus Mahesh begins to recount to three strangers he meets his obsession with an ill-fated couple. Skeptical, then intrigued, Arvind-bookseller, recently married, stifled by yet comfortable in a joint family, banker Ranjan-surface polish, seething passions; and Dev Reddy-disenchanted left-wing editor desperate for immortality will interpret Mahesh's confession according to their own insecurities and fantasies, pushing each to actions that will alter their lives and their dear ones irrevocably. Mahesh too will not be the same again. Set in Mumbai of the 1990s, the layered tale is both a commentary on urban Indians coping with the surging tides of globalization, the weight of memory, and the universal search for self-worth and identity in sedentary societies unsettled by rapid change.