‘Bombay Hangovers’: Stories that compulsively narrate the routine lives of the city’s residents
Still, Rochelle Potkar’s collection of short fiction tries to pick out unusual people. Mumbai by night. | Skye Vidur / CC BY-SA 2.0
We Indians are literary fiction snobs. We are never happy without a sense of quotidian tragedy looming over our stories. We have relegated passionate romances to films and humour to stand-up comedians – some of whom are not even jailed. In literature, we want to sit around looking glum despite cutting ties with Russia and replacing it with diabetes from too much neoliberal cola.
We think sci-fi is about flying cars and fantasy means thoughts that mustn’t be spoken about. We think escaping into the reality of our sordid lives is diving for culture vulture carrion. And I state this in all self-awareness: as a recent entrant to the margins of Indian English writing, I’m also guilty of milking the melancholy of everydayness