Between lines and lives

Illustrations by Niyati Singh from the chapters Green and The Peach: A Modern Fairytale

Gayatri Gill never intended to write a book. But as the times require us to be anything but silent observers, she ended up penning The Day Before Today: Lockdown Stories Speaking Tiger, a collection of short fiction with illustrations by Niyati Singh. The e-book comprises 10 stories, which began as an informal exercise.

Gill had returned to Mumbai from a trip to Mahabaleshwar, and was confronted with the lockdown. She began writing short stories inspired by this "whole new world" and sent it to friends and family groups via Whatsapp. "They were little windows to escape reality. I was projecting where life could reach," the Andheri resident tells us. Strangely, the fictional stories written over a month back seem closer to reality today - the narratives touch upon containment zones, essential services and the growing use of apps. The choice of the short story format, as opposed to a novel, was an organic one for the author since "on WhatsApp, people don-t have the time to read more than three pages. They-re also reading between chores since our lives are so fragmented now. You get to have 20 minutes to yourself before heading into four hours of chaos."

The stories are set in no specifc place, and the 64-pager comes with an illustration for each chapter. Gill, 38, wanted it to be dark and humourous, in line with her writing style and she remarks that Singh-s work is the kind that when you do stare at it, there-s a lot you can pick up. The co-founder of Swastik Productions, and a scriptwriter, producer and story editor, Gill says her 15-plus years of industry experience greatly shaped the book. "In screenwriting, you don-t think of the story but also the consumer: who is going to watch it? And thus, what should happen? But more importantly, I was also trying to excite myself. That-s why a lot of non-readers who have read the book have told me that it reads like a Netflix show - it-s binge-worthy," she shares.

The most challenging chapter for Gill was Infection, which she was prompted to write after the news of medical negligence towards pregnant women emerged. "As a mother, it was very disturbing to hear that. Then, to pen down a story about a pregnant Muslim woman being refused admission into hospitals was tough, too," she says. Even though the stories may not have happy endings, Gill hopes they fill readers with hope because she doesn-t believe that it is the end of the world.
"The new normal is coming - with glamourous, shiny masks and PPE suits. We have to look at this situation with humour as we have no other weapon," she states, echoing a line from her book - that the virus is holding all of us together like the "chhilka" of an unpeeled orange.

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