Love And Longing In Bombay  (English, Paperback, Vikram Chandra,)

Love And Longing In Bombay contains a collection of short stories by Vikram Chandra.

Summary Of The Book

Love And Longing In Bombay is a collection of five short stories narrated by a person sitting in a smoky bar in Bombay (Mumbai). The stories, entirely disconnected from each other, have one-word Sanskrit titles, namely Dharma, Artha, Kama, Shakti, and Shanti.

The story of Artha (wealth) is about the two founders of a software startup. They try to figure out why one of their first major installations, an accounting system, keeps losing the amounts of Rs. 20 and 20 paise constantly.

Kama (passion), the second story, involves a cop’s investigation of a murder that seems simple at first. It goes on to becomes more complex and the probe leads the policeman to reexamine his personal and professional lives as well as his motives.

The next story, Shakti (divine female power), is the entertaining story of two high society women who spar with each other in an undeclared war. One of them is a highly successful woman in the real world, but this does not count in their fight for status and one-upmanship in the social circles in which they move.

Dharma (the right path) is the fourth story in Love And Longing In Bombay. It is about a retired soldier who has returned home to his parents, but finds that their house is haunted by a ghost. The old soldier decides to investigate the ghostly spirit. Unfortunately, it seems to elude him all the time.

Shanti is the final story in the collection. In this story, an old man who is a storyteller tells the narrator an old time love story, about himself and his wife. This enables the narrator to discard his doubts and fears over his own love story and come to a firm decision.

Love And Longing In Bombay is an intriguing collection of stories that reveals as much about the city of Bombay as it does about the protagonists of the stories. It is ultimately an exploration of the human soul and its longings.

About Vikram Chandra

Vikram Chandra is an Indian-American author. Some of his other books are Red Earth And Pouring Rain and Sacred Games. Chandra was born in New Delhi in the year 1961. His father was a corporate executive and his mother a screenwriter. One of his sisters is also a screenwriter, while another is a film critic. Chandra earned a BA in English from Pomona College, California. He also earned an MA from Johns Hopkins University. The author’s debut novel, Red Earth And Pouring Rain, earned him many honors including the David Higham Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.