Foreword

Eds: In March 2013, Himal Southasian announced its short story competition, open to all, to write stories based around our Online-istan theme. Entries went through two rounds of judging by our editorial team, before the final selection was made by Southasian author Prajwal Parajuly, whose debut collection of short stories, The Gurkha’s Daughter, was published in 2012.

I acquired my first email address when I was 14 years old. It took a lot of effort, and a lot of people's help. Just when you thought the registration process was complete, the sluggish computer in the only cyber café in Gangtok, Sikkim, would refuse to co-operate. If it wasn't the machine, it was the internet connectivity. The line went dead if it rained too hard. Things, of course, have changed.

I first read the shortlisted entries of Himal's short story competition at JFK airport in New York, the connection between the theme of the competition – communication technology penetrating deeper into our lives – and the equipment on which I was reading the stories – my internet-enabled smartphone – not escaping me. That was quite a distance travelled from the days when even spam mail triggered excitement.

The six-hour plane journey to London gave me enough time to reflect on the stories. So, what do these entries – the best two among them rendered in this edition of Himal – tell us?

Yes, technology has brought unimaginable change. No, we aren't necessarily happier than we were when our indirect exchanges were limited to letters and phone calls. The world has become smaller. Southasians of my grandparents' age are familiarising themselves with the likes of Skype and Facebook. That doesn't mean we are closer to our family than we were 20 years ago, but it probably does mean I will look at you with a mixture of awe, envy and surprise if you claim not to have a Facebook account.

But these stories also bring with them happier news. Our attention spans may have dwindled, but a good tale is still a good tale. The temptation to refresh your inbox for the sixth time in 30 minutes may be strong, but a well-written story is as much of a distraction today as it was two decades ago. The fact that I read and re-read every one of the shortlisted stories on my computer and on paper, oblivious to my beeping phone and a dozen Facebook messages, should be testament enough. No, it wasn't a sense of duty that triggered the reading frenzy – the power of the story, at its best, still trumps technology's grip over me. For how long, I don't know. I can only hope that this harmonious co-existence gets even better.

'A and the i-stalk' and 'Question marks', written by Sumana Roy and Fehmida Zakeer respectively, are two excellent stories, and more than worthy of the short story competition's prizes. They are also so different from one another that attempting to rank them somehow seemed wrong. One is undeniably hilarious; the other is deliciously dark.

As we move towards an ever-more digital age, growing numbers of us will read short stories on our iPads. Many may even read them on their phones. Others will probably find and share links to them on Facebook newsfeeds, or perhaps on Twitter. But I believe that, regardless of the development of our devices, a great many of us will continue to read them in print. Whatever the medium, I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I enjoyed judging them.

I look forward to reading more from these writers.

Prajwal Parajuly is the author of the best-selling collection of short stories, The Gurkha's Daughter (2012). His debut novel, Land Where I Flee was published in 2013. He is a writer-in-residence at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, UK.

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