Novel writing is not a pass time hobby, a fashion, or a profession, it’s a passion – but not an easy task

[Stories and Poetry from the Room of IAS Officers]

Shubha Sarma is an IAS officer (1999 Batch) who has served in Odisha as well as in Govt. of India. Born and brought up in Lucknow, Shubha Sarma is an alumnus of Lady Shri Ram College and Jawaharlal Nehru University and a member of the Indian Administrative Service. A Yoga practitioner, she enjoys travelling, swimming and tending to her bonsai collection. Her debut book, Fly on the Wall & Other Stories was launched in 2013 and was translated into Hindi and Italian. It received rave reviews from readers and critics alike. Her body of work displays strong characters and reflects the changing times that confront us. This is her second novel. Her second book was The Awasthis of Aamnagri.

About Books:

• Fly on the Wall and Other Stories: In her debut book “Fly on the Wall & Other Stories”, author and civil servant, Shubha Sarma examines different facets of life’s narrative with detachment, precision and compassion. The subjects range from up-market, urban settings to the depths of rural Orissa and areas of civil strife and deep social unrest. The narrative strings together anxious house-wives, over-imaginative teenagers and men and women in the sunset of their lives. There is Dipankar, yearning for Assam and returning to discover that he is a stranger and the beautiful Uma, mysteriously killed and awaiting justice. They are people one encounters everyday on the bus, the metro and the mirror. Each story is different, yet each has characters etched lucidly as on ivory, situations that look so real in their contexts and strategies that enhance the fascination of the unfolding narratives. The author’s subtle ways of critiquing the society’s cant, the hidden greed and violence in human beings, the nuanced condemnation of patriarchy in its various crippling incarnations, has created a publication crafted with an ingenuous sense of structural balance. As a whole, this assortment of tales with a twist brings to life the