The Patna Manual of Style: Stories

Go to any party, in any country, on any moonlit terrace of the world, the best dressed man is always the one from Patna. ' In these nine interlinked stories we meet the not so quintessential Patna man Hriday Thakur,iterature junkie, aspiring writer, inveterateover of women and rain, Jishnu da, his acquaintance from Delhi University, who is now an 'importer of blondes', Samuel Crown, the fastidious proofreader who mentors Hriday and instils in him an irrevocableove for the art of 'book-making', the parade of women in Hriday'sife: austere, doe eyed Charulata,ove of his youth, the one who got away, Chitrangada, his wife, who works hard to be accepted in his world of books, art, politics and activism, the beautiful Anjali Singh Nalwa, ex-flame who is now a fiery, controversial novelist, Imogen Burns, the intrepid chronicler of graveyards, Sadaf Khan Abdali, whooves the smell ofisterine early in the morning and 'Sophiaoren', dream girl of many schoolboys, now a mother of two. Unsentimental to a fault, Siddharth Chowdhury's stories deal with relationships that are intimate and sensuous and sometimes hard to define, taken together, they are an affectionate nod to an idealist generation, insulated in a world of publishing, academia, gin-soaked brunches and Marxist philosophy. Intersting FactsChronicles theife of young Hriday Thakur, writer,ecturer, publisher, ad-man and inveterateover of women, from heart break to marriage in post-liberalization India. Will appeal to upper middle-class, down at heel,eft of centre, head in the clouds, movie buff. A treat for readers who have read Siddharth Chowdhury's earliers books Day Scholar, Patna Roughcut and Diksha at St. Martin's.