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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
I can't remember reading any other published story in English that is set in Bangalore (not that I had been searching for one) so this book feels special to me. This is not to say that Bangalore features prominently in every story. A lot of them could have been set in any Indian city except for the name-dropping that the authors did to make their stories fit the theme. Ironically—or maybe not—the pieces in the anthology that left an impression on me only mentioned Bangalore in passing, and yet depended on Bangalore being what it is/was. I'll touch on these when I review my favourite pieces from the anthology.
It's worth noting that pretty much no author featured in the anthology was born and brought up in Bangalore. Some of them moved here for work, and some of them moved elsewhere. The author of my favourite story of the book never even lived in Bangalore!
Overall it was a quick read. Not all stories are stellar but the book is worth a read just for the gems it does have. The one gripe I have is that the book does not say which ones are fiction and which ones are memoirs. I mistook some pieces as fiction and was disappointed by the really boring plot, but based on the author bio at the end I realised that it was a memoir; I had to remind myself that life is often boring.
I’d have rated it 4.5 if Goodreads allowed me to, but this is closer to a 4/5 than a 5/5 IMHO.
So, here are my favourite pieces from the book—in alphabetical order because if I try to rank amongst these, I’ll never finish writing this review.
- 284D by Dr. Mridula Basavaraj
- A place of our own by Prateek Nigam
- Nothing is required by Lara C Caldwell
- Tsunami by Trevor Louw
I’m reviewing each of these stories in depth because of how much I enjoyed them. There are spoilers after this
(listed in reverse-alphabetical for balance)
Spoiler
Tsunami by Trevor Louw: The story filled me with nostalgia for a place and a time that I hadn’t even experienced. To find out that it was written by a then unpublished author who hadn’t ever visited India blew my mind. I genuinely felt like joining a South African writing workshop and writing the best story of their anthology just to get back at him. You must think I’m joking and only be half right.
The story starts out being about Prathish, our narrator, who reminisces about an old-timey pub called Dewar’s that he used to frequent when he was still new at his company. And like I said earlier, I wasn’t sure at this point if it was a piece of fiction or a memoir.
Then the story builds this side-character called Shibu that the narrator forms a friendship with. Prathish and Shibu mostly talk about the changing landscape of Bengaluru (which was interesting, tbh) and I thought this was about their friendship.
Then the story adds layers to Shibu. I’d thought of Shibu as the obstinate drunkard clinging to the past just to play the foil to the narrator. His rant about how history is lost everytime we rebuild even felt typical. Trevor did such a great job of fleshing out the characters that I thought I was reading about real people.
Then the story changes as Shibu talks about his work in Pondicherry after the Tsunami. And that’s when I realised that Tsunami is really a story about Shibu and our narrator is the side-character through whose eyes we’re seeing the protagonist. The new information recontextualised Shibu’s rants earlier in the story for me.
And then the story hit the climax as it tells us what happened to Shibu’s relationship with the fisherman’s daughter. It recontextualised the whole person. I understood why he travels one hour to Dewar’s and back everyday despite the rains and the traffic. I had goosebumps.
The story was a revelation. This is what great writing looks like. I love twists in a story. I love it when you realise that the vampire is just allergic to garlic. But reading this story made me realise how the twist-ending is just the extreme form of good recontextualization like what this story does.
Yes, this was my favourite story of the anthology. It had everything: friendship, passion, philosophy; even accidental nudity. I don’t think I’ll be this good at writing no matter how many workshops I join. South African workshops need not worry.
Nothing is required by Lara C Caldwell: I still don’t know if this is fiction or a fictionalised memoir. The characters were so believable and consistent and the imagery was so vivid that I would believe it if you told me that this actually happened. But also the ending was so poetic and gut-wrenching that I want to believe that it was outlined that way.
The situation that our narrator found herself in is sadly not an uncommon one, but the way Lara brought to life the passive-aggressive stay-at-home mother-in-law, the outwardly sweet but ultimately entitled father-in-law and their conflict of expectations with their fiercely independent daugher-in-law who was dragged into a situation that she doesn’t feel comfortable in just for sake of her love for Amir was phenomenal. At the end, I was curious to know if the narrator would choose to stay with her fiancé or break up with him (or just break up with his family), but I think it ended at the right time. Great writing can become terrible if you don’t know when to stop.
A place of our own by Prateek Nigam: I like stories where the characters are in healthy loving relationships and the author doesn’t need to say it out loud. Prateek has managed to write a beautiful contemplative and slow paced story about a couple searching for an apartment in Bengaluru and made it fun.
At the surface the story is about finding an apartment that is within the heart of their Bangalore and yet in their budget. Just a layer deeper, however, runs the strong current of separation anxiety. Niharika is going to the US for her masters, leaving behind her not-quite-live-in partner Irshad alone in Bengaluru. Though they love each other, time and separation can separate the best of lovers and both of them are feeling it. The difference in their religion just makes it so much harder.
The metaphor of the migratory birds really stuck with me. The first time it was brought up I thought it was just some filler for Mrs. Bannerjee’s character, but the significance of the metaphor really stuck at the end.
284D by Dr. Mridula Basavaraj: This was, in my humble opinion, the best essay in the book. It is short and to the point. The writer’s travels on the bus route 284D is the vehicle for the story of her journey from landing in Yelahanka to loving Bengaluru. As Bengaluru embraced and became one with Yelahanka, so did Dr. Basavaraj with Bengaluru. Great stuff. I especially liked how she closed with the imagery of 284D as her sweetheart.
