Boomtown Girl

Sunder’s uneven debut collection follows a varied cast as they navigate ambitions and personal struggles in 1990s Bangalore. In “Independence Day” a teenage girl dines at the city’s first Pizza Hut with her businessman father, but the evening becomes tiresome the more he praises America (“our people haven’t learned the lessons worth learning from the West,” he claims), and he loses his fun parent status after lecturing a teen who’s smoking a cigarette. “Western Tailor” brings into focus a disgruntled Bangalore man named Ramesh, who bitterly remembers his glory days as a tailor for an Englishman, and now sews dresses out of a dingy garage. The story takes a dramatic turn after Ramesh takes a side job for a young American woman, which leads to problems at work and at home. “Jungleman” centers on scientist Varun, who reluctantly guides a foreign photographer around the forest and contends with her romanticized view of the Indian jungle. The writing is a bit prosaic, and the characters often one-dimensional, though there’s nevertheless a pulse in these slice-of-life narratives. It’s a bit rough, but Shubha captures some memorably human moments in a changing city. (Apr.)