Shamba by Kalkut [Hardcover]

Kalkut's new travelogue offers an experience as unique as it is profound. This journey isn't about slinging a bag over your shoulder and squeezing into a crowded train. In this journey, too, flutes play, and flags flutter, but these aren't the signals of the modern-day stationmaster. The flute here plays somewhere deep within the soul, its melody calling one away from home. The flag waves before the eyes like a picture, fluttering above the dark green treetops of the Raivataka mountain.

Following the call of that flute and flag, Kalakoot's journey this time leads him onto the path of ancient legends, to the city of Dwarka. Here, Krishna is a secondary character, and his son, the extraordinary hero, takes center stage. The sixteen thousand women of Krishna, enamored by the handsome warrior Samba, the hero of this tale, yearn for his companionship. The divine sage Narada brings this news to Krishna's ears. The father's strange jealousy descends as a curse upon his son Samba's life. How Samba frees himself from this cursed life is the remarkable story Kalakoot narrates in this new travel novel, a work that has earned the prestigious Sahitya Academy Award.