Vikram Chandra writes Love and Longing in Bombay as an exploration of Mumbai and the surrounding areas. His stories are fictional, but they are intended to capture the flavor and the heart of the city and its inhabitants. Mumbai becomes almost a character of its own, as home to such a diverse and lively population, always changing, always contradicting itself. As he describes the adventures of the various characters, Chandra's affection for Bombay shines through clearly. He offers adoration for the peculiarly confusing kind of beauty which is the home of his undergrad experience.
In five stories -- "Dharma," "Shakti," "Kama," "Artha," and "Shanti" -- the fictional narrator, Shiv Subramaniam relates some secondhand stories which he gathered during his career as a civil servant. He really attempts to capture the obsessive allure which is his city, despite all its faults. Although four of the five stories feature other characters, "Shanti" is about Shiv's own life, when he meets his wife. There is a peculiar longing, not quite captured in nostalgia, with which Shiv describes these people and their lives. He is attempting to express how meaningful his career was.
