Petty Obsessions, in E Minor

Only two pieces rise above the pedestrian, The Great Game in which the action flows back and forth between a cricket match in Dubai, and two cops watching the game on TV in Mumbai, hoping to spot a mafia don. The other story, The Sacrifice, is layered and evocative, as the unidentified narrator-cum-sacrificial victim is prepared for the kill.

But while the book jacket confidently assures us of ‘‘lyrical heat’’ and ‘‘subtleties of modern Indian life’’ these elements are usually invisible in this slim volume. What can be abundantly found is praise from Chaudhuri about himself. For instance, in E-minor, he is unintentionally hilarious, when he describes meeting a friend, Shireen, after many years. ‘‘She’s a solicitor, and looks assured. With brown hair around her freckled face, ‘I read about you in the papers. She’s nicer than I can ever remember’.’’

And then Chaudhuri gallops along unabashed, where humbler (and more talented) writers would fear to tread: ‘‘He says he’s heard of me, invites me to sit down. ‘I saw your poster in Crossroads yesterday. You’re reading day after, aren’t you.’” So now we know that Chaudhuri has been featured in newspapers and has posters plastered across town. But wait, there is more. ‘‘I tell him I must retrieve wife and daughter from Rhythm house, and brave the traffic to Mahim, to take part in a ‘live chat’ on rediff.com. I’ve never done this sort of thing before. He suggests I protest too much. I think Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan were on it the other day.’’

Is Chaudhuri seriously writing this as ‘‘meaningful’’ blank verse? Many of the short stories in this collection have been published before, mostly in worthy and foreign publications (and no doubt won many awards and been drowned in praise). Which makes one wonder if we are experiencing some kind of western publishing house mass hypnosis.

For if we look further, in other short stories such as White Lies, all that Chaudhuri demonstrates is an accountant’s talent for accumulating irrelevant details, the meticulous listing of artifacts the average Bengali householder has on an average Bengali shelf or the mundane routine in a housewife’s life. While it is clear that the author is making a brave attempt — he can’t seem to emerge out of the fog of words and ideas.

Therefore, if you pass this book in a shop and if Chaudhuri isn’t anywhere in the vicinity, just tiptoe past it, and run like hell for cover.