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Book Review – Windows into India: Stories from the Subcontinent by Arindam Chakraborty

Windows into India makes up an easy-to-read engrossing collection of ten short stories. First story, ‘Ramu’ highlights the pain of a family caught in the fire of partition. It takes readers to the painful era of the country i.e. 1947. Though people were forced to flee and resettle at new places they always longed for their family and friends left behind. The story Ramu reminds innocence in friendship. When he boarded the train to leave East Pakistan (Bangladesh), his friend Ahmed surprises him at the railway station with a token of love.


‘Ramu’ is a distinct historical fictional story, remaining nine are contemporary, backdropped against the modern cities of India like Pune where IT people congregate. IT is not only an industry but also a world of people with their peculiar nuisances, joys, challenges, and emotions. Many of the stories in the collection have the ambience of the IT companies, mainly because of the author’s professional backdrop.

Leave Application explores the bottled up emotions of two young people in the same office who are in love but refused to acknowledge until accidently nudged by their manager. As the book chugs ahead, diversity in emotions, ironies of fate, and vagaries of circumstances draw in readers for a delightful experience.

The stories aren’t featuring larger-than-life characters or extraordinary tales, rather they hold the pulse of our life that most of us live while going to work, shopping at the stores, meeting people at the traffic signals, or attempting spiritual retreats.

Love, family allegiance, gender empowerment, comeuppance, life situations, etc. are some concurrent themes that run deeper in the book. Gender Diversity and Bhai Dooj are superb stories that remind us of our social duties towards women and transgender. The story ‘Inner Piece’ manifests the need of piece in our life, funnily we seek it outside, but it’s an inside job.

It despite being a very short book, the author did a brilliant job by completing the emotional and personality nuisances of his characters. This is a work of absolute creativity, nothing was hurried or stuffed. This ability is possessed by rare short story tellers and Arindam is one of them.

The tone of the book shifts from one story to another, at times lucid and hilarious, and next in the story it gains skeins of intensity and dark humour. The author’s writing style, subtle humour, and the way he has narrated the dilemma of emotions in a realistic manner will keep readers spellbinding. The effect and simplicity of the stories rustles up sheer delight. Windows into India is a light read that you can pick anytime without any preconceived notion. Highly recommended!

Get your copy from Amazon/Kindle

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