When a humble funeral procession collides with a scooter on a scorching afternoon, a chain of bewildering, comical, and deeply revealing events is set in motion. At the centre of it all is Sadanand Borse—an unremarkable, lower-middle-class man whose sudden lottery win turns his small, anxious world upside down.
In The Cold War of Sadanand Borse, one of contemporary Marathi literature’s most incisive voices, Shyam Manohar, turns the microscope on the moral and emotional contradictions of India’s aspiring middle class in the post- Independence era. Through the chaos that follows a simple accident— unfolding across streets, hospitals, cramped apartments, and gossiping neighbourhoods—Manohar paints a world teetering between aspiration and insecurity, decency and greed, humanity and absurdity.
Translated with wit and precision by Jerry Pinto, this darkly comic novella exposes the quiet hostilities and petty wars that define urban life—the small humiliations and secret ambitions that shape the Indian middle-class dream. At once satirical and tender, this is a brilliantly observed study of how sudden fortune, social pressure, and the hunger for dignity can turn ordinary lives into a tragicomedy.