Esha Kher

Imagine the moments right after catching a brief glimpse of someone walking down a street, what do you remember or learn about that person?-maybe the color of their T-shirt, their hair color, or at the most the basic geometry of their face. Now consider obtaining a sort of magical second sight in which those few seconds you can peruse their conscience - their emotional volatility, the threshold of their agreeableness, their imagination, passions, desires, experiences, social attachments. In This Is How It Took Place: Stories, Rudrakshi Bhattacharjee has seemed to surpass human limitations to achieve this seemingly divine omniscience; she empathetically deconstructs the multi-dimensional psyche of random strangers whose life she'd never lived or emotions she'd never felt. This book gives humans qualities to abstract ideas in an attempt to define relationship roles, philosophies of life, and intrinsic existential deviations. This sort of personification is best seen in her ability to draw a parallel of her adaptation of Romeo and Juliet to the actual play while maintaining the same level of dramatic irony while reflecting the complexities of a modern era teenager. Overall, I recommend this book to everyone, but mostly to people who are interested in psychology and people in general. Rest in peace Rudrakshi;