Review of ‘Lockdown Longings’by Revathi Suresh

Lockdown Longings is a short, tight selection of 10 short stories written for these times, the culmination of a short story contest that happened just afte the March lockdown. All 10 are almost uniformly well written, keeping the reader trapped in a bubble of unease with no let up. My favourites were three exceptionally tender ones: Ajay Patri’s ‘Rose’, where two strangers meet over a misdialed number; Malini Gupta’s ‘Benedict’, where a small act of kindness becomes a life-changer; and Sucharita Dutta-Asane’s ‘Interlude’, about being old, frail and alone in the time of a pandemic. There are others that are just plain chilling or unbearably sad: two pieces of speculative fiction (one about Kashmir, and one about air that comes at a price) and another about a woman bravely facing hospital time come to mind. The authors’ notes on what inspired them to write their…