Review: The Bombay Quartet by Dilip Chitre
A compelling vision of life in Bombay, seen through the author’s mytho-poetic vision: The Hindu
The Bombay Quartet by the late poet Dilip Chitre — exquisitely translated by Jayant Deshpande from the original Chaturang that appeared in Marathi in 1995 — is a set of four novellas arranged in a descending order of length. Except for the third, The Full Moon in Winter, theothering three are fables inhabiting the surreal spaces of inexplicable obsessions, dreams and nightmares, set within Bombay’s concrete reality. In his foreword, the author describes Bombay as “the city where millions crave and fantasise, chase and collapse, taste reality and its tragic ironies mixed with magic revelations.” It is this idea of Bombay that provides the inspiration, the context and the narrative.
