The Dance is Over

As a young man, the author experienced the political and religious turmoil that surrounded India’s independence and its post-colonial legacy. He also worked in the Arabian Gulf, and his stories are based on this varied experience. He now owns a small coconut and mango plantation, has a wife, two children and four grandchildren. His interests include music and the classical performing art forms of Kerala. The Dance is Over is his first book.

 In the author’s hands, we experience the sights and sounds of a bygone age and exotic locations. There are animals: an aristocratic dog; an elephant in a hole; a lizard that foretells the future. And people: a dancer who descends into poverty and suicide; a king greeted by his subjects’ bottoms; drunken Mohan who is sober; robbers in the night; a man whose nose drops in the soup, and Kurup, who loses a flat because of his superstition. Also travel: a family holiday travelling with a hoodoo; Jonah, who always ends up at the wrong airport, and the perils of Indian railways:

The clever and dashing chaps would engage two smart porters: one to jump with the baggage onto the coach as it came rolling on to the platform, then spread the bedroll on the upper rack, while the other porter would propel (by shoving) the passenger in through the window. For the second porter, rates often varied according to the bulk and mass of the cargo. Those of the bantam class, like myself, had the edge ...’