Urban Shots: Bright Lights

The book is a compilation of 29 beautiful short stories, edited by bestselling author, Paritosh Uttam.

It’s the perfect cocktail - right amount of ingredients - be it comedy, drama, suspense, thriller, crime, biography, romance, fantasy. Few stories figuratively intoxicate and leave you in want of something more of it.

The book takes you on a joy ride from posh Bangalore colony to a flat in Jaipur. Amul has the innocence of a child, Maami Menace has a petty neighbour, who has solution to every problem but yet she doesn't try them on her own. Stories such as It’s All Good, The Pig In A Poke and The Weeping Girl are based on the current topics of recession,fraudulent mails and conning. Across The Seas and the Raincoat have emotional quotient attached to them. Father Of My Son is my favourite, which has a father backing his son's proposal of marriage. Hot Pants increases your interest exponentially as you proceed with the story. The Peacock Cut is a literary delight and the choice of words has infused life into otherwise ordinary story.
A low-point being that there were many proof-reading mistakes of apostrophe, inverted commas and even spelling mistakes. Also some stories appeared to be routine blogging stuff and a few wore the look as if they were translated from Hindi.
Apart from these, the book is just a perfect read and is prescribed dose of musings of urban life. It is worth the money you spend on it. My personal favourite being - Father Of My Son.

in a country obsessed with urban livelihood , this book presents a an inner perspective of urban characters. right from the maths loving kid to the old retiree all the characters reflect menacingly the true honest face of urban India. overall this book is a great read and expecting more from writers like Arvind Chandrasekhar , Malathi Jayakumar and co. three cheers to all of you.

Urban Shots Crossroads is a gripping collection of tales which is hard to put down once you've begun reading. Each one of the stories is unique and creates a vivid picture of quirky characters in urban India. A light read, the book contains some stories that are funny, others that are awe inspiring and leave you thinking.Kudos to all the authors and the editor of the collection!

I have to say : This is a lot better than the first Urban Shots. I loved the variety in the stories and the perfect portrayals of people we all may know in real life. The stories are more concise,ranging from hilarious to thought provoking. This, along with Urban Shots : Crosswords has really set the bar high. Goes to show there's a lot of untapped writing talent in India.

Bought this book just to bear witness to my friend's creativity printed on paper for the first time. And I was not a least bit disappointed. Not only was Mydhili Varma's work humorous, laced with irony with an underlying theme of loneliness. Knowing as I know her personally, I am not surprised that her work represented childhood at its innocence and creativity. I found works of other authors equally potent. This is a very good buy and has my thumbs up all the time :)