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Crossroads: Stories & Essays by Armeen Kapadia Basavaraju by [Armeen Kapadia Basavaraju]

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Armeen Kapadia Basavaraju

Crossroads: Stories & Essays by Armeen Kapadia Basavaraju Kindle Edition

by Armeen Kapadia Basavaraju (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Crossroads is a delightful window into the Parsi community. This collection explores the day-to-day conversations, emotions and events that alter and shape the lives of different Parsis in modern India.

These stories and essays are set against the backdrop of the Parsi community, revealing the community’s unique character and quirks and the issues that a vanishing community faces.

Print length

88 pages
Language

English
Publication date

25 April 2020
File size

3354 KB
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B087PFPDVF
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Epica Books (25 April 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3354 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 88 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #258,940 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #8,666 in Short Stories (Kindle Store)
- #13,678 in Short Stories (Books)

Customer Reviews:
27 ratings

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Armeen Kapadia Basavaraju

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A graduate of Sophia College, Mumbai, and post-graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Armeen thinks that words and design are not that different, after all. A few years back she returned to her old love — writing — and hasn’t looked back since. If you ask her what she’s reading, be prepared for a fairly long conversation. You’ve been warned.

Armeen is always on the look-out for a good, solid bookcase to house her book collection. Besides books, she cultivates a growing stamp collection.

Her stories have been published in literary magazines such as Amarillo Bay and The Louisville Review.

Customer reviews

4.9 out of 5

27 global ratings

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Amit Patil

Engaging, Captivating with a dash of humour

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 3 September 2022

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The author has well established characters from the parsi community. But what stands apart is that the characters stay with you. They help you reflect different stages of life. The book ends with some humorous stories particularly the one named prospect is really well written. Personally i liked Behrams character in the story named Cravings. Recommended read.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 10 January 2021

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Armeen Kapadia's Crossroads is a percipient glimpse of Parsi life and culture. A superb collection of stories that cover a range of themes and emotions with respect to the Parsi community, their trials and tribulations, deftly handling humour and pathos and everything in between. The characters are remarkable for having at one and the same time, a universal appeal as well as the quintessential specificity of the unique Parsi community. Turning the pages of the book, you get a delicious slice of Parsi life-- its rites and rituals, relationships, the aromas wafting from their kitchens and their existential angst. Kapadia's penetrating, sharp-witted and spiffy writing, shorn of any artifice, made my weekend.

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Neelam Shetye

Perfect book to curl up with on a weekend....every story is a gem!

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 3 March 2021

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A brilliant collection of stories! Armeen Kapadia’s characters are so endearing and relatable; their dilemmas and dramas could very well be playing out in your own house, and yet there is the distinct thread of Parsi culture and life that she weaves in so beautifully through the book. Every story tugs at your heart in different ways. Her descriptions are authentic. Her humour is sharp and yet completely natural and effortless, as though a friend were sitting next to you comfortably recounting an experience they had. Loved it, and can’t wait to read more of her work!

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 30 April 2020

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This was so refreshing to read after a long time! Such lovely, real, earthy stories exquisitely laced together. I kept wanting to know more about all of them and there was an undeniable connection with so many of the things mentioned, be it the shampoo, the parent-child dynamic, the awe with which we treated overseas chocolates, and maybe even visitors, until we knew better, regular everyday life as we knew it put together in the best possible manner.
I also loved how the descriptions managed to be just right, transporting the reader into that little world of those characters, without getting too verbose.

It was delightful and un-put-downable (if that's a word), in a calm and peaceful sort of way.

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Sabeena Karnik

Delightful, heartwarming and the best stories Iv read in decades

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 7 September 2020

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What a beautiful book with a series of short stories, so different from each other and yet have something in common...They all have a heart and so much depth which is evident from the soulful and witty writing of the author. A book for all ages, stories which will make you think about the little things, smile, laugh and even shed a tear. The author has given short stories a whole new meaning with her masterful yet simple writing. ‘Crossroads’ is truly a gem that I will preserve for life.

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abhishek biswas

Breaking Parsi stereotypes gently

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 6 July 2021

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A calm and easy side to the world of Parsi people, who I only considered as mad and eccentric collectors of old cars. I thoroughly enjoyed reading these vignettes, and eagerly wait for more from the author.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 16 October 2020

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Wow! Crossroads, beautiful and penned very nicely. Armeen has written all the stories very well. My favourite the first and last. Essays are described very nicely. The cockroach was the top one to read. Loved the book.
Wishing and waiting for your future publication of books.
Congratulations once again Armeen !

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Ajit Rao

As real as it can get - A must read!

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 12 June 2020

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I agree story telling is art, but visceral too! Armeen takes you all the way into not just immersing you, but makes you feel you are there. Effortless representation of life and connects instantly and instinctively.
Feel good factor makes this book light on our senses too.
Honestly wanted more, it ended too soon. Waiting for the next one...

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Christine Biancheria

Un Triplo Successo

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on 10 September 2020

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Il libro “Crossroads” mi ha colto di sorpresa nel migliore modo.
Nata e cresciuta negli Stati Uniti, fino a poco tempo fa, non sapevo nulla della comunità Parsi; non ero consapevole dell'India e Mumbai e dello sfondo delle storie.
L'India ha ricevuto molti benefici dalla comunità Parsi, famosa per la filantropia e per aver offerto aiuto nel progredire, senza invadere nella religione o nella loro cultura. Ora, purtroppo il numero di questa comunità si sta dimezzando; “Crossroads” è la perfetta introduzione per un lettore come me, nella vita di tutti i giorni e nei problemi che la comunità Parsi sta affrontando.
La lettura è leggera e fluida ed anche piacevole. Due storie, come quella che da il nome al libro, parlano di situazioni che si svolgono nelle famiglie, dove i desideri per evadere dalle tradizioni, di innamorarsi di stranieri o di non sposarsi affatto, danno motivo per conflitti.
Ho trovato che il libro approfondisce alcune tematiche. La trama di “Crossroads” è tessuta sempre di più nella vita giornaliera di Mumbai.
Un esempio: "Rebellion", "Phobia" ed anche "Farewell" mi hanno lasciato pensieri profondi per molto tempo dopo averli letti. Secondo me “Crossroads” è un triplo successo.
L'autore offre esperienze profonde, una piccola finestra di una comunità nella quale non si accede facilmente, anche perché non ci sono molti libri sui scaffali di biblioteche o negozi per poter scoprire di più sulla vita di questa comunità.
I lettori di Mumbai avranno di sicuro nostalgia per gli sfondi, così con la trama.

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Danesh Bharucha

Poignant, funny, a little jewel of a book.

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on 15 April 2022

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A collection of stories about Parsis, humorous, thought-provoking and poignant. There is not another community in India so loveable, yet wildly eccentric, as the Parsis. Luckily, most of them do recognize their foibles and idiosyncracies and know how to laugh at themselves. They are also, apparently, blessed (some may say cursed) with exceptional longevity. As witness Dina, the endearing old lady who has just turned 98 in the story 'Birthday', but doesn't know it. And Behram, in the story 'Craving', that lover of chocolates that he can no longer enjoy since his gall-bladder surgery, but who happily shares his little stash of imported chocolates with his grandchildren. Other characters who leave an indelible mark on the reader are Roshani, with her loathing of cockroaches, and diverse people who appear in the opening story ' Crossroads', which takes us into the home of a Zoroastrian priest and his family, and into the forbidden-to-many inner sanctum of the fire temple that he prays at and manages. I particularly like the author's description of the rituals and ceremonies at which the priest and his son Dinshaw preside. Fire, the element that the Parsis hold most sacred, is the beating heart of every fire temple, and Eruchjee is the keeper of the flame, kindling and refreshing the burning of the sandalwood as the essential part of his duties as head priest: 'He was prodding the small logs, rearranging them, murmuring prayers. The fire was responding to his attention. Flames leapt up, excited, brilliant little sparks swallowed by the depths of the ceiling."
There is both poetry and power in Armeen Kapadia Basavaraju's writing. As a Parsi herself, she speaks from her own life's experience and we can guess that she surely knew many of the people - or people very much like them - that she presents to us in these charming tales. Some of the stories are tender and romantic. Others oblige the reader to realise, certainly with regret, that the fire-worshippers will probably soon be entirely absent from India, mainly because there are no eligible young Parsis left, and the ones that are still 'on the marriage market', are frequently not the stuff of a young person's romantic aspirations. A case in point being the ridiculous bachelor in the story 'Prospect', with his 'armpit-high pants' visiting the writer's family from the USA, and who, for a brief moment, appears to be perfect husband material for the writer's spinster aunt. Perhaps the funniest character in the book, but not as rare a creature as one might think. It isn't for nothing that so many amused Indians call the Parsis 'mad bawajis'!
These stories stay with you long after you have finished reading them. The text is lucid and incisive, the metaphors very appropriate, and the characters that run through the whole collection ring very true, so sensitively are they described. As the Parsis slowly wind down and vanish, a book like this one should be considered a little classic, and essential reading. An examination of, and a tribute to a vanishing tribe.

Sea Sons

Enjoyable read

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 24 May 2020

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading these stories. One gets quickly immersed into these witty, thought provoking and relatable stories. Looking forward to more.

Christine Biancheria

Thought-Provoking, Memorable Stories with a View to the Daily Life of the Parsi Community

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 20 August 2020

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Crossroads took me by surprise, in the best of ways. Born and bred in the U.S., until recently, I knew nothing of the Parsi community and was unfamiliar with India or Mumbai, the backdrop for the stories. India has reaped outsized benefits from the Parsi minority, famous for a philanthropic bent and a history of bettering society without intruding on existing Indian religions and customs. Now, the numbers of this precious community are dwindling. Crossroads is a perfect welcome mat for a reader like me into the daily life and issues Parsis face. It is easy to move through the book because the stories are short and the writing light, airy and beautiful. Two of the stories, including the namesake “Crossroads,” tackle difficult family decisions involving the tensions between loyalty to expanding the Parsi community set against desires for nontraditional, unmarried life or love for an outsider.
I found the book to go deeper as it went on. Woven into other stories that are poignant and thought-provoking in their own right are “slices of life” in Mumbai. Some – such as “Rebellion,” “Phobia” and “Farewell” – imprinted in me images and emotions that followed me for long after I read them. For example, “Rebellion” left me thinking about how to bring more empathy to encounters with difficult people and examining desires for vengeance. Or “Farewell,” another story that in a mere 10 pages captured the rhythms and dual nature of joys and sorrows that accompany life’s inevitable changes. To me, Crossroads is a triple success. Its author offers deep experiences, a window into a community that is not easily accessible, and a partial remedy for the heretofore scant presence of books involving Parsi life on the shelves of booksellers and libraries. Readers from Mumbai are likely to get a dose of nostalgia on top of the plotlines.

Delzin

Heartwarming short stories of the Zoroastrian community

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 25 February 2022

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A delightful read! This book made me laugh and tear up at the same time and is packed with quick stories that make for a lovely bedtime read. Each story deeply resonated with me and took me down a nostalgic ride to the city I grew up in and am still, deeply in love with. My favorite story is 'Little brown bastards'. Waiting for the author's next book!

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