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Welcome to the Fisherman's Rest, a little bar off the Sasoon Dock in Bombay where Mr. Subramaniam spins his tales for a select audience. This is the setting for Vikram Chandra's collection of seven short stories, Love and Longing in Bombay, and Subramaniam is Chandra's Scheherezade. In these stories, Chandra has covered the gamut of genres: there is a ghost story, a love story, a murder mystery, and a crime story, each tale joined to the others by the voice of the elusive narrator. In "Shakti," a discussion about real estate leads to the story of a soldier who must exorcise a ghostly child from his family home. In the final story, "Shanti," a young woman's despair about the state of the country becomes a springboard for a tale of love and hope. Love and Longing in Bombay is a mesmerizing collection, filled with fully rounded characters and stories that resonate long after the book is back on the shelf. Chandra's prose is luminous, his tales satisfying. Scheherezade would be impressed.
