Book Review – Love and Longing in Bombay

Love and longing in Bombay

“

The incredible length of Bombay sped by, those endless sprawls of buildings, huts and shacks, children squatting and shitting by the tracks, refuse, the crowded grey roads twisting and winding between, all of it blurred but fearsome in its strength, in its very life that grew it unstoppably.”

Vikram Chandra

It is the very essence from the quote in the book that does not come across in the narration. The books remains a dusty collection of short stories by Vikram Chandra, a little before he became famous.  Very secularly he restricts the titles of the short stories from being Hindu, he has Dharma, Artha, Kama and shanti and shakti but no Moksha.

Anyway, stories are narrated in place called Fisherman’s Nest. I’m still confused if they were all narrated by retired Joint-secretary from the ministry of defence called Subramaniam or he just happened to be the chairing the session.

The first one Dharma tells us the experience of Jago Antia.. real estate a ghost and exorcism.

The next one Shakti is about the two women one born entitled and the other a social upstart eventually the standard Hindi movie end prevails the kids meet at the  horizon. The impression I got as a reader is that the author is not really comfortable with the character to Sheila does he make her a schemer or does he make her empath. He does not even take a stand  that creates a true Grey character.

The third story Kama introduces Sartaj the protagonist of Sacred games. When a dead person turns up at the ditch, and a drunk wears the dead man’s Rolex the conclusion seems logical. However, it evolves that the dead man something or the other Patel and his wife had a not so conservative life style. Their son is shattered when he discovers it.  the narrative contains strong portions of Hindu fundamentalism and intolerance.

Artha is the next story is about love and revenge heterosexual relationships, and of course murder of the artist who cheats the protagonist Iqbal’s lover Raju and troubles Iqbal’s saviour sandhya. It was about art, art forgery, masterpieces and art investment.

Shanti the last story in the anthology just ambles. The cover page touts it as brilliant collection of stories from contemporary India. To me it was like a bland dish from my grandparent’s era. My grandpa would have been a centurion and grandma would be 97yrs. If alive. The book neither catches the raw energy of Bombay nor does it get the sizzling melt pot that it is of various culture.  Maybe a better name for the book would be Dehradun, a place where people are eternally waiting.

If only the energy that this quote has a standalone got translated into the book.

“So now that began to develop into a full-fledged shouting match of its own, and all in all it was soon a full-scale old-style Bombay tamasha, with people watching from every balcony and window in every building, up and down the road, laughing and giving advice and yelling at each other.”

Vikram Chandra

Wish this sentiment had shown up actively in the book instead of passive idiomatically written prose.

Author Vikram Chandra.

Publisher Penguin co.in

ISBN 9780143414179