One Rotten Apple and Other Stories by Vandana Kumari Jena, author of Dance of Death and The Incubation Chamber, is an anthology of twenty-six stories which adroitly weaves a tapestry of life’s reality by shedding light on a gamut of human emotions, the psychological upheavals of the characters and some seriously menacing social scourges. In her opening story, ‘Blood Ties’, Jena deals with the theme of adultery and does not pillory it in the dock of morality. The futility of war and terror is certainly a case to lament over, the echoes of which reverberate in tales like ‘Initiation Rites’, ‘The Choice’ and ‘The unforgiven’.
In a world of radical terrorism and religious conflicts the issue is universally appealing to all the communities which have borne this savagery. Aftab in ‘Initiation Rites’ is an iconoclastic figure, the representative of some misguided youth who fall prey to the diabolical design of the terror outfits and wreak havoc by snuffing out innocent lives. His words, the ‘Mission Accomplished’ after blowing off a train expose the underbelly of our terror- afflicted society. This idea of insurgency is carried forward in another story ‘The Choice’ which leaves the terror attack survivor Charu scarred for life. The brutalities of Hindu-Muslim riots and rapes are agonizingly delineated in ‘The Saviour’ and ‘Cry, My Beloved Child’. The acerbic tongue of the author is indeed unsparing in taking potshots against the gory crime of rape but she redeems ‘The Saviour’ with grace by proffering a humane idea that every saffron-clad Swami is not a hard-core fanatic. The irresistible atheist Kabir is another antithesis of those bigots who tarnish the very image of religion by spilling blood in its name. The tale ‘One Rotten Apple’ shatters Mannan Aluwalia whose schizophrenic wife drowns her two children to death but the unconditional love of Mita for the bereaved father is quite sublime.