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Title: masterful manipulation of the "contemporary" in India
Review: Vikram Chandra's Love and Longing in Bombay is refreshingly contemporary. He writes eloquently and convincingly of a Bombay populated by real people not the angst-ridden characters laden with 'history' that one is apt to encounter in books by the Indian postcolonial male. The story I loved best was the one about computer programmers racing to save their business told against a wrenching story of homosexual love interrupted by the brutal punch of right-wing religious politics in Bombay. The figure of the young man mourning his lost partner and their abruptly extinguished love on the beach is one that haunts me as does the account earlier of their lovemaking. Chandra is an exciting new writing talent who like Arundhati Roy sets new, higher standards for Indian writers than an earlier generation of largely over-rated scribes.
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