Sameer Gudhate Presents the Book Review of Tales from the Absurd by Swati Bhattacharyya

The first time I picked up Tales from the Absurd, I half-expected a neat little box of stories where everything had its place, logic tucked in like napkins at a dinner table. But this book? It flipped the table. It asked logic to take a stroll, shut the door, and invited in the wild cousins of imagination — the kind who eat dessert first, tell secrets out loud, and laugh in the middle of a funeral scene. And somewhere between a pianist playing notes only I could hear, a pair of shoes whispering their own saga, and a writer turning her pen against her, I realized I wasn’t just reading stories. I was eavesdropping on life when it forgets to follow rules.

Swati Bhattacharyya is no stranger to storytelling. A former IT professional turned homemaker, she has already wandered through memoirs, poetry, and even a novella. But here, she loosens the reins entirely. Her absurdist collection is not about tidy morals or predictable arcs. It’s about catching you off guard, holding up a mirror to life’s quirks, and asking: what if the ordinary could be extraordinary, simply by tilting your head a little?

There are twenty stories in this collection, each playing a different note in this odd symphony. Some, like The Pianist, pulse with nostalgia, tugging me back to my own childhood coaching classes where the air smelt of chalk dust and ambition. Others, like The Shoe Story, are playfully inventive, forcing you to step—quite literally—into a new perspective. And then there’s The Writer, which turns the very act of writing into a sly, self-reflective twist that left me smirking long after I closed the book.

Swati’s prose is deceptively simple. She doesn’t try to seduce you with ornamental sentences; instead, she lures you in with an everyday rhythm and then slips in the strange, the surreal, almost casually. One page you’re walking down the street, and the next, you’re tumbling into a scene where dogs vote with their piddle or a dinner party unravels into a blood-soaked spectacle. It’s this seamless blending of the mundane with the bizarre that makes her writing sing — or perhaps hum, like a tune you can’t place but can’t shake either.

What fascinated me most wasn’t just the absurdity, but the truth hidden beneath it. The insect-vivisecting boy made me uneasy, but it also made me think about innocence curdling into cruelty. The dinner party drenched in sudden horror reminded me how fragile our everyday rituals are — how quickly comfort can collapse. These aren’t just “weird tales” for the sake of weirdness. They are thought experiments, little provocations that nudge you to consider what lies beneath your own daily routines.

That said, not every story hit the same high note. A few ended abruptly, leaving me scratching my head more than stroking my chin. At times, I wished for a deeper dive, a few more pages to let the strangeness bloom fully. But perhaps that’s the point — absurdity resists closure. It leaves doors half-open, hallways unexplored, echoes unfinished.

Reading this book felt like wandering through a carnival at dusk — lights flickering, shadows lengthening, laughter mixing with unease. It made me pause between stories, sip my tea a little slower, and think: maybe life itself is best understood not in the clean lines of reason, but in the crooked sketches of the absurd.

For me, Tales from the Absurd is less a book you consume and more an experience you step into. It will delight those who love quirky storytelling, unsettle those who seek tidy endings, and intrigue anyone willing to let go of the “why” for a while. It reminded me that fiction doesn’t have to solve life’s puzzles; sometimes it’s enough to remind us how strange and wondrous the puzzle itself really is.

As I closed the final page, a thought lingered: perhaps absurdism is not an escape from reality, but a deeper embrace of it — acknowledging that our lives, too, are stitched with quirks, contradictions, and the occasional burst of madness. And isn’t that, in its own way, beautiful?

So if you’re ready for a reading experience that tilts the floor under your feet and lets you dance a little offbeat, pick up Tales from the Absurd. Just don’t expect logic to hold your hand. Expect surprise. Expect strangeness. Expect, quite simply, the unexpected.

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