The Lost Flamingoes Of Bombay

Dear Mr. Sanghvi.... If you ever read this review.... this one is for you..... When I read the The Last Song of... I was enthralled... when i read The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay... I cried.... I am one of them ... the flamingoes of Sewri.... due to a new job... I had to leave Bombay..... its been 3 months and I still yearn for Bombay.... somehow somewhere it symbolises home for me..... as the wise men say... you can take a man out of bombay but not bombay out of the man.....

and I can identify myself...the people I have left behind with the characters in this book...... i have known a clarinet player whose life is similar to Samar..... Rhea Dalal seems so close to a girl who is in throes of a great upheaval.....

there is an ethereal transparency to your writing.... i have often woken up in the middle of the night to steal a few more pages of reading.... only to be overwhelmed and the need to contemplate..... the dirty underbelly of the city has been portrayed starkly..... and yet without casting a pall of gloom.....

i know why karan came back.... but i was hoping you would have touched a bit more of his longing to be back in the city.... why he had to come back..... as a lot of us want to do.....

The Bombay you read in this book is a Bombay entirely different from what it originally is. It is the writer's imagination and insight into what it oughts to be like and an eye opener for what it lacks. The book is a welcome break from innumerous tales of poverty and middle class struggle in India. Shanghavi's description of regality and stature in both the books (The lost flamingoes of Bombay & The last song of dusk) takes you to the world, which many of us envy and the little details of which fascinate us. The characters are polished, classy and artistically articulate in their shrewd remarks.

' In one quick, smart motion Diya unzipped her black dress and let it fall to her feet, where it gathered in a desultory heap. Hiking up the succulent left cheek of her butt, encased in white lacy knickers, she said, 'It's Capricorn, my star sign'.
Now who would have imagined that. And it is such pleasant shocks all of a sudden which 'make my pee pee go, doing doing doing.'
Or take this for example, 'When she came back, when her mind was shoved to its senses, to who she was, a married women, he was about to climax- and she caught it expertly, the thick rain of an angry storm.' So, its quite clear, the reader is not to blame.

Sex, promiscuity and swapping partners, the book has virtually everything, and yet much more and way beyond libidos.

'Get the book now, and you're in for a treat.'