Synopsis
A modern-day Bengali Decameron, My Kind of Girl is a sensitive and vibrant novella containing four disarming accounts of unrequited love. In a railway station one bleak December night, four strangers from different walks of life - a contractor, a government bureaucrat, a writer, and a doctor - face an overnight delay. The sight of a young loving couple prompts them to reflect on and share with each other their own experiences of the vagaries of the human heart in a story cycle that is in turn melancholy, playful, wise and heart-wrenching. The tales reveal each traveler's inner landscape.
Review
I love this book. The premise is intriguing and after years of just putting it on my wishlist, I finally ordered and bought it.
With clean but sophisticated prose (I'm reading the translated version), the author manages to convey four people's love stories in such a simplistic way. I enjoy reading each story and the meaning in them, what love means to each person and how their love story begins, then ends. My favorite is the first and second stories, and my least favorite is the fourth but somehow the last one contains more sorrow and meaning than the rest.
There are tragic first loves, death, marriage, matchmaking, family, stolen glances, misunderstandings, and a happy love story as well. It gives insight into the lives of people in India in that era, as well as their customs, which is a pleasure to read about.
The ending is quiet, nothing dramatic but it gives us a long pause to think about the whole book. Somehow it is more perfect that way.
I'm not sure about the rest of the author's books, but I think I'll seek them out and give them a try.
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