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April 27, 2005
The Red Carpet:Bangalore Stories
From the Inside Flap
Wry humor and a delicious grasp of the friction between generations in Bangalore are the hallmarks of Lavanya Sankaran’s fresh, deeply nuanced debut collection. “A potpourri of beggars and billionaires and determinedly laid-back ways,” Bangalore, India’s own Silicon Valley, is a crucible for prosperity, and at the chaotic crossroads between past and present. Here, American-trained professionals like Tara return to their old-fashioned families with heads full of Quentin Tarantino dialogue; a successful entrepreneur is shaken when his partner suddenly reneges on their plan to return to America; a traditional Indian mother slyly circumvents her Western-educated daughter’s resistance to marriage; a neighborhood gossip is determined to discover what goes on behind the closed curtains of the hip young couple across the street; a chauffeur must reconcile his more orthodox credos with his employer’s miniskirt lifestyle.
Publishers' Weekly is a little luke-warm:
"Though the stories often don't end up as strongly as they begin - Sankaran builds tension brilliantly but doesn't always offer a climax to balance it - they are memorable for their subtle wit and convincing evocation of a dynamic world."
Posted by Pooja Makhijani at 02:16 PM | Comments (2)