This is a collection of 52 stories by Ranganaayakamma. Like her novels, I loved this book too. Reading her is like education. She strives to bring clarity between the good and the bad in her stories and characters. She doesn't like to be ambiguous about such things like some others do and it's such a relief.
I'm really surprised, rather pleasantly, to read about how she makes changes and improves her works in subsequent editions depending on how her own opinions change owing to greater knowledge and expereince. I wonder how many authors do this kind of exercise.
In these stories I got the taste of her sarcasm and also humor apart from her usual style. Notable sarcastic/ humorous stories include - Pellaniki Premalekha - which tells that a wife expects to be loved by her husband, not just needed; Kanipinchutaledu - funny naration by a husband of a "muggu" addict wife; Pelli chesesaam - about people who regards acceptance to social norms is the only way to live; Kutra - very fuuny account of how revolutionists are conspiring against people by writing their literature in a wrong and complex language. There are also many stories which make us think and learn something. But I assure you that they are equally or even more entertaining.
I'm very much impressed by her feminist ideas and also her principled nature. She is a marxist and one can find more than a few stories in this collection in which she expresses those ideas. She believes that marxism is the only knowledge worth enough to know, the dearth of which makes lives worthless. According to her (marxism), accumulation of wealth is a crime. If there is wealth, it comes only by exploiting others. When a landlord sits at home, has servants to do the work both in the house and the land, he is just exploiting them. I'm not sure I agree with all this. Or it might just mean my ignorance about the valuable marxism and am in a hopeless state.
