I never know what’s going on in the heads of other people, and I often don’t ask: “how do you feel?”, so I plug in their internal struggles by making my assumptions and producing my fiction. When I say it that way, it sounds so lame.

I’ve read a few things by Kailash. He’s accomplished and he’s going to go places. I believe he is working on a collection of short stories currently as well as a novel. That’s exciting. That’s something I’m looking forward to reading.

Kailash won runner-up in the Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence, run by Ex-Puritan. I saved it for a later reading time. Work is relentless, it’s distracting, takes not just time but bandwidth, so I pick my spots. I picked Saturday morning, before heading to the Christmas market, because I had a feeling I would need a salve after this story. I didn’t know what it was about but I’ve read this man before and I had that notion in my head…

The deeply personal inclinations of writers shock and scare me, as I obfuscate my way through the literary world, studiously attempting never to pull on chords from my real life. I’m very cowardly. In part, this is why I don’t like putting my personal life online. I mean, who am I? That said, I’ve really enjoyed meeting writers in real life, where I can’t hide behind any such veneer. Me, so real. I’m not a digital fabrication, I promise.

“You Like?” has that feeling of reality that cuts hard. It feels utterly true. And its truth is harsh, otherworldly so, like this is happening right now to people even if they’ve been extracted from that reality and have moved on. Yeah, I’m Indian, too, and I think Kailash and I share some heritage to be honest, so the details of the story and its grounded nature in India, familiar. The threat is real. The visceral reaction to this story made me take notice, held me still, and forced me to write about the courage it takes to write something like this, and to survive the story, the reading of it… but especially the writing. I think Kailash is a brave writer. That is the best compliment I, humble writer that I am, can give.

I think you should read this story. It’s up on Ex-Puritan here. A type of story that makes me reevaluate the courage I display in my own writing, or the lack thereof, and envisions the challenge of doing better, and reflecting the direness of the world. My personal spin is, as it must be for me, to find some hope in the stench. That is my challenge. In the things I have seen and experienced, there was so little hope, I never found that thread or was able to pull it through; in my writing, start dark and bring it to some light, you must you must. I can fantasize and thus fabricate hope. I haven’t always been able to find it in reality. The convergence of these worlds is a tempest, and I need to do better to find my way through. Kailash’s story is an opening to do just that. I’m thankful for literature of this type. Expertly-written and conceived, bright with detail and emotion and horror and despair – and more than all of that, filled with courage.