(2005-05-13) Kanani, Jesal Harin; Collins, Merle; Creative Writing; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Monsoon Caught in Gulmohars is a collection of short stories that seeks to explore how otherwise perfect characters find themselves flawed as they try to reconcile with change in their life, and how they view themselves differently, as they try to settle in their new skins. Some of these stories try to understand how they respond, ignore or adapt to change. Other stories function as mirrors in which a certain way of life, a certain place, is magnified. The stories set in US are interpretations of a new environment from the eyes of an immigrant community that is close-knit but insular. Stylistically, a variety of voices, of points of view and identities have been adopted with varying syntax to heighten the manner in which characters perceive their individual realities, their individual stories. The stories have been arranged in the order of their achievement in realizing this vision.
