The Mind Doctor & Other Stories
Apurba Kumar Saikia
The Mind Doctor and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Apurba Kumar Saikia with an amazing amplitude, vibrant language covering almost every aspect of human experience, with possible extensions. A fancy sense of unending humour, poetic delineation of scenes and events and taut narration make the stories lively pieces of admirable art, while characters in these stories are tormented with self-doubt, existential angst, and a depressing sense of futility.
Description
Praises of the book The Mind Doctor & Other Stories by Apurba Kumar Saikia: “What seems to be an absurdity has a very meaningful import in the story The Nose: A Nonsense Tale. The large nose appears to be a bizarre life-long obsession of the protagonist Nirala but it begins to make a lot of sense if seen in the backdrop of the mother’s story of how Nirala was saved by the elephant because of the large nose, the trunk.” – Sukrita Paul KumarThe Editor, Indian Literature “Saikia’s literary prowess is characterised by profound storytelling, infused with subtle wit and a profound understanding of human nature.” – Northeast Now “The riches of Apurba Saikia’s stories lie in the skilful uses of language. His language changes form in every other story like the tail of a gecko. We get the visual treat of a regenerated tail while still enjoying the dance of the previous dismembered tail of the same gecko. Ingeborg Bachmann comes to my mind while going through Apurba’s stories. Language is punishment. All things must enter into language and remain there according to the degree of their guilt.” – Prabhat BoraRenowned critic and scholar
