Review: Passion Flower: Seven Stories Of Derangement by Cyrus Mistry

While the undercurrent is grim and even morbid, Cyrus Mistry notches up another high with this anthology of short stories, writes Aishwarya Gupta: Tehelka

As it reads on the book jacket, a classic violet Bena Sareen work, Passion Flower: Seven Stories of Derangement is quite certainly another triumph for Cyrus Mistry. The jacket also calls the seven-story-compilation ‘disturbing’, which one might find oneself in disagreement with, in parts. An odd theme of derangement runs through the seven stories, all of which are unsettling yet mildly comforting. Perhaps the comfort stems from the fact that the reader is attracted to the author’s insight into the grey lanes of an individual’s mind. Even ordinary people are constantly susceptible to emotions and thoughts that they seldom entertain brazenly, lest they disregard the standards of societal appropriateness and accepted behaviour.