Across lives, cities, and continents, melancholy and its tentacles inhabit spaces that are often left unexplored. Through ten stories and ten main protagonists, this book paints a portrait of the universal emotion that strikes the deepest and lingers the longest—sorrow. A nuanced narrative of the eternal human existence, this collection embraces light, laughter, hope, and that silently pulsating craving called love, delivering a communal meditation on mortal failings and human persistence. The stories traverse the length and breadth of the world picking up a train of melody from the sonorous sound of the Bosphorus to the resounding refrain of the Qawwali, from the quiet streets of Isfahan to a crowded city in Japan, from two lovers fraught with desire in Bombay to one man’s spiritual awakening in Lebanon. Each story, mired by the undercurrent of simple occurrences and profound epiphanies, also forms an unwitting part of a Sufi’s journey as he navigates the world in his mystic inquiry of the unknown.

Siddharth Dasgupta
Inspired by The Little Prince at the age of seven, Siddharth Dasgupta resolved to explore and experience the horizons of the universe when he grew up. He appears to have come good on that promise combining travel with cultural immersion and contributing regularly to aesthetic magazines and travel journals alike. Siddhartha’s fiction is infused with travel details, imbued in lyricism and magic realism, and enriched by a meditative touch. His first work of fiction, Letters from an Indian Summer, was published in 2014. This is his second book.