The Red Carpet

Author: Lavanya Sankaran
Publisher: Review
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 215
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0755327853

Description

In India, as everywhere else, the young want to break with tradition and the old struggle to keep it. Welcome to a world where software billionaires, beggars, and the legacy of the Raj combine and collide, and the clash between old-fashioned parents and their Americanised young is particularly fraught.

The Red Carpet is an extraordinary enjoyable, witty and humane collection of stories as rich and absorbing as any novel. From traditional Indian mothers urging their Westernized children towards marriage, caste-bound chauffeurs and Anglo-Indian convent teachers, to sexual permissiveness, first-class flights, sushi, cocktails and rebellion, Lavanya Sankaran subverts familiar themes of family, love and cultural identity in an outstanding debut.

Contents

Bombay This

Closed Curtains

Two Four Six Eight

The Red Carpet

Alphabet Soup

Mysore Coffee

Birdie Num-Num

Apple Pie, One By Two