Product Description

Six stories which paint a picture of bustling Bombay's ghosts, passions, feuds and mysteries, whilst also exploring timeless questions of the human spirit. The stories are narrated by an elusive civil servant who, on six successive nights, recounts an extraordinary tale in a smoky Bombay bar.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61648 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
Five ingeniously linked long stories by the young Indian-born author whose impressive fictional debut was the magical-realist Red Earth and Pouring Rain (1995). These stories, which are uniformly full-bodied and richly detailed, are told by a convivial yet enigmatic civil servant, Subramaniam, to his attentive cronies in a bar called the Fisherman's Rest. Each recounts a quest of some kind, and all are distinguished by unusually detailed and persuasive characterizations. "Dharma" tells of a stoical combat veteran who experiences "phantom pain" in his amputated leg and consequently a ghostly visitation that brings equally painful memories of his childhood. "Shakti" is an amusing tale of rivalry between two socially ambitious women that is resolved by an unexpected alliance. In "Kama," the investigation of an apparently open-and-shut robbery and murder uncovers a morass of sexual and political misdoing and the complicated personal life of Sartaj, the police detective who learns as much about himself as about the killer he pursues. "Artha" and "Shanti," respectively, describe a gay computer programmer's dangerous search for information about his disappeared lover, and a twin bereft of his brother and in love with a beautiful married woman who travels ceaselessly looking for the truth about her long-lost husband, a soldier reported missing in action. "Love and longing" indeed are thus, in various ways, the motive forces behind these pieces - and in the last, the tale-teller Subramaniam is himself an important presence, and we realize how the preceding stories have also expressed aspects of his own loves and longings. A brilliant work, equally effective in its radiant separate parts and as a pleasingly complex and highly original construction. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

A book that has so much to say
Please ignore the person who labelled this novel as 'dire and dissapointing'. To say that the stories lacked purpose is to misunderstand the layers that the series of stories represents. I was introduced to this novel during my english degree, on a module examining Indian writing this was the novel that really struck me. The examination of the encounter between modernity and tradition in Bombay creates a haunting underworld in the novel, a semi-mythological Indian past that lurks within the shadows, and haunts the disembodied old houses that are trapped between scaling apartment blocks. It is a brilliantly haunting novel - in particular the story of Sartaj the detective who is trapped between the underworld and the real world, ending up isolated from both. Read it, you will not be dissapointed.

I loved this book and have re-read it several times!
The stories in this collection are very different, each totally absorbing in its own way. I've been to Bombay a few times and this book took me back there. The love and longing expressed in the stories about Sartaj the policeman and Iqbal the programmer still haunt me. After reading the comments from Glasgow I'll have to give 'Red Earth and Pouring Rain' another try - if, like me, you couldn't get into it don't let it put you off 'Love and Longing...'

A craftsman at work ...
Chandra is a master of language: his imagery is so vivid and fresh that scenes and characters bounce from the page, his use of words so dazzling I often found myself reading paragraphs over and over, completely blown away with the author's skill. And not a single battered to death cliché to be found. The stories too were subtle and enchanting, gently weaving in and out of plots and sub-plots. For anyone who appreciates a real craftsman of words, 'Love And Longing In Bombay' cannot fail to please. I can't think of more than half a dozen other books I'd give five stars to.