“Miracle of coexistence”

"On June 20, 2015, even as Bombay reeled under a frenetic assault of rain and floods, tales of the city were brought alive at the London Short Story Festival, a literary festival spread over four days and committed to giving the short story the recognition it deserves,” writes author Murzban Shroff in an email sent to Parsiana. Organized by Spread the Word, London’s writer development agency, and held at the mammoth five-storeyed Waterstones bookstore on Piccadilly, London, the festival saw 65 writers participate in 27 events.

Murzban Shroff (ext right) at London Short Story Festival

Talking of Bombay stories and discussing issues like civic apathy, corruption, depletion of green zones, and encroachments, Shroff, author of Breathless in Bombay which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2009, was part of a panel that included award-winning writers like Lynn Coady (Toronto) and Alex Preston (London). Although handicapped by its corrupt civic administration, Bombay is "a miracle of coexistence, a benevolent mother who has everything to give to those who brought her their dreams and aspirations,” he wrote. According to him, "To get somewhere in Bombay you are always giving up something. Your peace, your comfort, your pride, and precious bits of family time. But imagine what the city is giving up. Every moment it is losing something to a vast and relentless human assault…In Bombay, we have little control over our environment — that control has been wrenched from us. What we can control is how we view and treat each other, the fact that we are all here for the same reason.”
Reading excerpts from a story on the Victoriawallas of Bombay (currently topical as these horse-drawn carriages are soon to be phased out), Shroff said that literature has a duty to anticipate where the city was headed. He uses the short story form because "Bombay needs many stories, working at multiple levels, to capture its polyphony of class and cultures.”
Now in its second edition, the Festival drew heavyweight writers like Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri and the Sunday Times EFG (backed by the private bank EFG) Short Story Award-winner Kevin Barry. Supported by organizations like BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and English PEN (an association of writers and editors promoting literature and freedom of expression), the festival saw writers, publishers, agents, and readers agree on the growing importance of the short story. "In the age of brevity, literature will have to deliver a quicker, more engaging fix, which the short story is ideally positioned to do,” maintains Shroff who has published stories in over 50 premier journals across the US and the UK and won several distinguished awards and nominations.