The magic of Aladin, Sindbad, Ali Baba retold

2102 Nights by Vipul Rikhi reminds one of Scheherazade from the 1001 Arabian Nights, and is a collection of stories that a drunk writer begins to narrate to his cat, Schahriar, one fine day full of paranoid despair.

Rikhi was a fellow for literature at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany, and has worked variously as a scriptwriter, editor, teacher and translator. He has published collections of poems and short stories before and the poet in him is at work here in these short stories that have fascinating imagery.

Touchingly, this book is dedicated, as he writes, ‘for my mother and sister, and the generations to come.’

The very first pages let you know the kind of story you are being confronted with. And it only gets more intense as you turn the pages.

There is a mix of history, mythology, politics, the old and ancient blendid with the modern and the surreal.

The First Night: The Tale of the Lamp and the Bush – To return to the story of old Aladin. I want you to imagine him first, this old Aladin, without all the power, grace, and glory that accompanied him after the discovery of the lamp.

He is old now  - wrinkles on his skin, bent at his knees, wobbly in his walk, bleary in his vision, slow in his digestion.

A thing coming to its end. His hair’s thin and silver. His bald pate, pockmarked with dark spots, shines through it.

Thick bags of flesh hand below his eyes. He squints now, in an effort to see straight. Things could not be more crooked for him.

2102 Nights
by Vipul Rikhi
Fingerprint (Prakash Books)
Rs.195