Sunday, October 29, 2006

Love & Longing in Bombay

I read Vikram Chandra's 'Love & Longing in Bombay' over the Eid break. The book is quite old, but somehow I had never gotten around to reading this collection of five excellent short stories. I was very impressed by each of these stories, all set in the cosmopolitan blend of Mumbai's sophisticated as well as middle class. Each story came with a dose of irony, intellect and ambiguous endings. A book I thoroughly enjoyed reading!

4 comments:

clickable said...

I'm reading this wonderful book right now, and was wondering if you remember the ending of the story "Kama". Do you think the last line means that Sartaj Singh commits suicide? This ending has been bothering me for half a day now!

Radha said...

Hey, almost all the stories had really ambiguous endings. You could choose your own ending to the story. But personally, I didnt think Sartaj would've committed suicide. Did you?

clickable said...

Yeah, exactly...his personality wasn't like that at all. But the last line "He waited...then he decided to plunge in" seemed to mean that. Or maybe it meant it decided to tackle the day.

Radha said...

I thought so too; but I guess it was meant to end like that...in uncertainty....so that the reader could draw his/her own conclusions