Shaukat Ajmeri

Fed up with the chaos and corruption in India, Sanjeev finds refuge in Toronto, where he appreciates its physical comforts and its quiet, organized pace of life. But over time, he wearies of its cold indifference and its utter predictability, and ennui begins to gnaw at his soul. One day he witnesses a senseless shooting outside his building. Unable to come to terms with this event, he packs his bags and flees back home to Udaipur, his native city. But home is no longer the place he left behind.

In sparkling, clear prose, understated yet unflinching, Open Season probes deep into the fissures of caste, class, religion, and gender in our world. Located mostly in small-town India, the stories speak of a world familiar and yet all too elusive, of a gentler, mellower, more hopeful time; they explore the charms and constraints of life in a small town.

Keepers of the Faith is set among the members of a small Muslim sect of India, ruled by an oppressive priesthood that demands absolute submission. When a section of the community rebels, the head priest's wrath comes crashing down upon them and a peaceful community is split into two.