Vikram Chandra is a powerful writer; his short stories in Love and Longing in Bombay are masterful. All are united by the common technique of the narrator encountering a friend, Subramaniam who tells a story. The narrator says this about Subramaniam, "Subramaniam had white hair, he was thin, and in the falling dusk he looked very small to me, the kind of man who would while away the endless boredom of his life in a bar off Sasoon Dock, and so I shaped him up in my mind, and weighed him and dropped him. I should have noticed then that the waiters brought his drinks to him without being asked, and that the others talked around his silence but always with their faces turned towards him..."(3).
The stories are five, "Dharma", "Shakti", "Kama", "Artha", and "Shanti". I'd read "Shakti first in an Indian compilation called Mirrorworks and had already determined that it was a story that I'd like to use in class. Shakti means "power", as far as I know, and the story is about different levels, kinds, and exercises of power. "Dharma" is the story of a man who meets his ghost. "Kama" is a story about the motivation for committing murder, not sex or love or property, but "the most complicated thing of all." "Artha" is a story about how to live. When suffering is so great, how does one go on? How does one live? Finally, "Shanti", peace, is introduced in response to worry about a woman who is "in despair over the state of the country" and has become cynical. Subramaniam tells the story of a boy who, waiting at a train station with a friend, falls in love with a young lady who is also waiting for a train. Over a period of time, the two become acquainted. The young lady is searching for her pilot husband who is missing in action. She is traveling the length and breadth of India looking for him. Whenever she stops at the hero's station, she has a cup of tea and tells the hero stories that she has heard along the way. Finally, the hero responds by telling her a tale of his own. What the tales have in common is the pure human condition, the existential response to living.
These stories are moving, masterful, and mindful.
The stories are five, "Dharma", "Shakti", "Kama", "Artha", and "Shanti". I'd read "Shakti first in an Indian compilation called Mirrorworks and had already determined that it was a story that I'd like to use in class. Shakti means "power", as far as I know, and the story is about different levels, kinds, and exercises of power. "Dharma" is the story of a man who meets his ghost. "Kama" is a story about the motivation for committing murder, not sex or love or property, but "the most complicated thing of all." "Artha" is a story about how to live. When suffering is so great, how does one go on? How does one live? Finally, "Shanti", peace, is introduced in response to worry about a woman who is "in despair over the state of the country" and has become cynical. Subramaniam tells the story of a boy who, waiting at a train station with a friend, falls in love with a young lady who is also waiting for a train. Over a period of time, the two become acquainted. The young lady is searching for her pilot husband who is missing in action. She is traveling the length and breadth of India looking for him. Whenever she stops at the hero's station, she has a cup of tea and tells the hero stories that she has heard along the way. Finally, the hero responds by telling her a tale of his own. What the tales have in common is the pure human condition, the existential response to living.
These stories are moving, masterful, and mindful.
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