Umesh Mathur 
Lamp Lighter and Other Short Stories 

The author of a story book has the compulsions of dealing with the vagaries provided by life and the dichotomy that is life. The stories of the book are in a way reflections of life itself. Each story therefore is cast with different mould, as the genre remains the same the take off and landing is on perpetual stagger. The gripping point of each story in the book comes from its uniqueness, the unparrelleled themes, the changing facades, and unblinking heroics of the combatants in each story. An angler casts his net in familiar waters; the story writer does not have that luxury. The drama could start as a costume one and end up in a slow tempered modern day love theme. The seven colours of rainbow, the seven Ras of Indian stagecraft, the seven oceans come vibrantly in to our focus. The reader says, Write what you like, will read what I like. The question majorly worrying the author to bridge the gap betwen the two likes and their lies the difference between the Gold and the Bronze medals, the wayword and the cutting edge of success.