Jagdish Keshav’s The President Vanishes and other Stories is a Chinese box collection with four dimensions that outline the pseudo modern existence – myth, instinct, reification and organised crime.A born story teller, he keeps our eyes glued onto the narratives verging on suspense. In “Circa”, in the search for the missing jewels, the quest for answers lies within, and readers also find themselves in a hunt for the missing link, a metaphor for some answer that has always evaded us and lingered onto the mind, as in the end of the story. It symbolizes the irrational fear that is a heavy baggage whose bits and pieces we find strewn on our path.”The March of Asuras” caricaturizes war that is often romanticized in myth and legends, and utilizes a powerful myth to subvert the same. ”The Story of a Lecher: Nayan Lal!” is a pointer to the patriarchal existence that promotes the reification and commodification of women. The inquisitiveness of the men-folk is a peep into their own psyche where the woman is objectified.”The President Vanishes” presents terrorism as the intentionally distorted simulacrum of religion.
I comprehend that “Circa” is in the form of a quest to complete oneself through God. Though instead of completing ourselves, we end up completing God binding him to a construct.…
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