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Gateway of India #1-3
Gateway of India
The Gateway of India, built in the early twentieth century, served as a ceremonial entrance to the city of Bombay. Today, it remains the city’s most famous landmark.
Set in 1980s Bombay, this collection of stories and a novella provides a gateway into the lives of ordinary citizens. A doctor who retires to begin a new life, a bus conductor, a police inspector, the residents in an affluent neighborhood, a schoolteacher and his students—each vignette captures the unique struggles and triumphs of life in India’s commercial capital.
The special omnibus edition contains all three books in the Gateway of India series and includes a bonus story, Saturday Date.
Set in 1980s Bombay, this collection of stories and a novella provides a gateway into the lives of ordinary citizens. A doctor who retires to begin a new life, a bus conductor, a police inspector, the residents in an affluent neighborhood, a schoolteacher and his students—each vignette captures the unique struggles and triumphs of life in India’s commercial capital.
The special omnibus edition contains all three books in the Gateway of India series and includes a bonus story, Saturday Date.
- GenresIndiaShort Stories
226 pages, Paperback
Published November 3, 2015
4 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
About the author
Ken Doyle
6 books75 followersKen Doyle was born in Bombay, India, into a family with Portuguese and Anglo-Indian roots. He moved to the USA for graduate studies and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his family. One of his early short stories, written at the age of sixteen, was selected for inclusion in an anthology of Indian science fiction.
Currently, his writing spans several genres, including literary fiction and science fiction for young adults.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/author.kendoyle
Twitter: @DoyleKen
Pinterest: pinterest.com/kdoyleauthor
About.Me: about.me/ken.doyle
Currently, his writing spans several genres, including literary fiction and science fiction for young adults.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/author.kendoyle
Twitter: @DoyleKen
Pinterest: pinterest.com/kdoyleauthor
About.Me: about.me/ken.doyle
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 19, 2016
I loved Ken Doyle's Bombay Bhel, and this second volume of stories that further explores the colorful city in transition does not disappoint. In fact, it is even better. The prose flows more evenly, the stories are richer, and the voice more self-assured. The characters are all linked in some way, and it adds to the enjoyment of the reading process to discover what that link is--like sifting through ancient sand for a tiny treasure.
One of the things I love about Doyle's writing is he does not stoop to gimmicks. His narration is rather old-fashioned, and his realistic stories are about large issues within ordinary lives. He oozes empathy for his characters, and does not resort either to stereotypes or to writing for a white audience, as some writers of color get trapped into doing. If you want to know what India is like, read Doyle. All the beauty, complexity, sadness, and mystical qualities come through in his stories and descriptions. "I think we need to anchor our lives on something that is invariant, while the world around us continues to mutate and evolve." Each character looks for his or her anchor. That search is what draws in the reader.
The book is divided into linked sections, a novella, and a bonus story that is truly a bonus. In "Saturday Date," Doyle takes a few more chances, and it pays off. Would it were a novel!
I will be keeping this on my bookshelf and reading again someday.
One of the things I love about Doyle's writing is he does not stoop to gimmicks. His narration is rather old-fashioned, and his realistic stories are about large issues within ordinary lives. He oozes empathy for his characters, and does not resort either to stereotypes or to writing for a white audience, as some writers of color get trapped into doing. If you want to know what India is like, read Doyle. All the beauty, complexity, sadness, and mystical qualities come through in his stories and descriptions. "I think we need to anchor our lives on something that is invariant, while the world around us continues to mutate and evolve." Each character looks for his or her anchor. That search is what draws in the reader.
The book is divided into linked sections, a novella, and a bonus story that is truly a bonus. In "Saturday Date," Doyle takes a few more chances, and it pays off. Would it were a novel!
I will be keeping this on my bookshelf and reading again someday.
December 5, 2015
The Gateway of India is an appropriate image for Ken Doyle’s latest collection of short stories, all of which are concerned in one way or another with possession and dispossession. The Gateway stands at the tip of Apollo Bunder in Mumbai and overlooks Mumbai harbour. It was constructed by the British in 1924, officially to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary. Unofficially, of course, it symbolized the power of the British Raj and British ‘ownership’ of the entire subcontinent. Nowadays it is a major tourist attraction and is colonized by street merchants, food vendors and photographers.
I reviewed Ken Doyle’s collection of short stories Bombay Behl a couple of months ago (http://wp.me/p6okee-hT). This new collection, Gateway of India, extends and broadens the themes of the earlier book, visiting a wider range of characters from various backgrounds, many of whom are linked by family and geographical ties (and a love of cricket). The author’s affection and empathy for all his characters are once again in evidence, as is his sense of the interconnections that exist above and beneath explicit awareness. The vast disparities of wealth and education in India that separate castes and classes, plus the complications of religious affiliation, mean that even the lowliest daily choices and activities can be freighted with significance, particularly for those who live on the brink of precarity.
If we include the ‘bonus’ story the author provides, this collection is framed by Dr Frank Rebello, whose ‘Escape to Calangute’ in the opening story of that title describes the retirement of a good man and a good doctor. ‘Saturday Date’, set before his retirement, shows him caring for Mary, a mendicant singer with a little girl to support, and whose visions of the Virgin are accompanied by searing headaches. For me, ‘Saturday Date’ – told in the immediacy of the present tense – is the finest story in the collection, and Mary its most interesting character. We accompany Mary as she makes the rounds, singing ‘You are my sunshine’ for money thrown from people’s balconies and the occasional handful of food. There is genuine pathos here that is neither sentimental nor disempowering.
Despite pain and hardship, despite the deeply unfair society they must learn to navigate, the lowliest characters can and do give so much of themselves. In ‘A Matter of Chemistry’, Mr Thadani, who sells door to door in order to supplement his teaching income, provides a student with a simple chemistry set that sets him on the path to knowledge and a career. In ‘Empty Nest’, it is wealthy Rupa who provides shelter to her servant Shanti and her children, and who adjusts with casual ease to the removal of Shanti and the need to hire a new servant.
‘I think we need to anchor our lives in something that is invariant, while the world around us continues to mutate and evolve,’ says another character, a traditional healer, who speaks for many of the people we meet in this collection. Lives can change with appalling suddenness – on a bureaucratic whim, a slum can be cleared and its inhabitants shipped back to their native villages. ‘I put my arms around her then, and together, we grieved for lives lost and those that were never to be’ – the concluding line to ‘The Healer’s Burden’ is an act of mourning and solidarity, and a summation of the suffering, visible and invisible, that haunts the lives of so many in Bombay.
The eponymous novella included in Gateway of India shows us good people striving to protect themselves and each other in ways that are sometimes self-destructive and shortsighted. The community of Chughani Manor – around which most of these stories revolve, and whose characters’ names and outcomes crop up agreeably throughout the collection – is, I take it, a microcosm of everyday life in the big city, replete with petty prejudices and acts of generosity, social cohesion and harsh ostracisms. People get by somehow, find happiness and sorrow, live and die. We readers weep for the pain of the world.
Gateway of India comprises simple stories simply told. In my opinion, the author is more confident here than in his earlier collection, more ambitious. I think he could afford to be more ambitious still, especially with his language and with form. The effect of these stories is cumulative and verges on the sociological: a society in transition that yet clings to its traditions is revealed via the unremarkable lives of ordinary folk doing the best they can. The stories leave room for goodness and redemption and love. These are all good things and good to read about. I have enjoyed reading more from Ken Doyle.
I reviewed Ken Doyle’s collection of short stories Bombay Behl a couple of months ago (http://wp.me/p6okee-hT). This new collection, Gateway of India, extends and broadens the themes of the earlier book, visiting a wider range of characters from various backgrounds, many of whom are linked by family and geographical ties (and a love of cricket). The author’s affection and empathy for all his characters are once again in evidence, as is his sense of the interconnections that exist above and beneath explicit awareness. The vast disparities of wealth and education in India that separate castes and classes, plus the complications of religious affiliation, mean that even the lowliest daily choices and activities can be freighted with significance, particularly for those who live on the brink of precarity.
If we include the ‘bonus’ story the author provides, this collection is framed by Dr Frank Rebello, whose ‘Escape to Calangute’ in the opening story of that title describes the retirement of a good man and a good doctor. ‘Saturday Date’, set before his retirement, shows him caring for Mary, a mendicant singer with a little girl to support, and whose visions of the Virgin are accompanied by searing headaches. For me, ‘Saturday Date’ – told in the immediacy of the present tense – is the finest story in the collection, and Mary its most interesting character. We accompany Mary as she makes the rounds, singing ‘You are my sunshine’ for money thrown from people’s balconies and the occasional handful of food. There is genuine pathos here that is neither sentimental nor disempowering.
Despite pain and hardship, despite the deeply unfair society they must learn to navigate, the lowliest characters can and do give so much of themselves. In ‘A Matter of Chemistry’, Mr Thadani, who sells door to door in order to supplement his teaching income, provides a student with a simple chemistry set that sets him on the path to knowledge and a career. In ‘Empty Nest’, it is wealthy Rupa who provides shelter to her servant Shanti and her children, and who adjusts with casual ease to the removal of Shanti and the need to hire a new servant.
‘I think we need to anchor our lives in something that is invariant, while the world around us continues to mutate and evolve,’ says another character, a traditional healer, who speaks for many of the people we meet in this collection. Lives can change with appalling suddenness – on a bureaucratic whim, a slum can be cleared and its inhabitants shipped back to their native villages. ‘I put my arms around her then, and together, we grieved for lives lost and those that were never to be’ – the concluding line to ‘The Healer’s Burden’ is an act of mourning and solidarity, and a summation of the suffering, visible and invisible, that haunts the lives of so many in Bombay.
The eponymous novella included in Gateway of India shows us good people striving to protect themselves and each other in ways that are sometimes self-destructive and shortsighted. The community of Chughani Manor – around which most of these stories revolve, and whose characters’ names and outcomes crop up agreeably throughout the collection – is, I take it, a microcosm of everyday life in the big city, replete with petty prejudices and acts of generosity, social cohesion and harsh ostracisms. People get by somehow, find happiness and sorrow, live and die. We readers weep for the pain of the world.
Gateway of India comprises simple stories simply told. In my opinion, the author is more confident here than in his earlier collection, more ambitious. I think he could afford to be more ambitious still, especially with his language and with form. The effect of these stories is cumulative and verges on the sociological: a society in transition that yet clings to its traditions is revealed via the unremarkable lives of ordinary folk doing the best they can. The stories leave room for goodness and redemption and love. These are all good things and good to read about. I have enjoyed reading more from Ken Doyle.
December 27, 2017
This collection of stories paints the reality of daily life in Bombay - Mumbai - in a neatly woven tapestry of tastes and colours. I could easily imagine myself as the fly on the wall watching each narrative unfold and gently connect. A treat to read.
December 11, 2015
A delightful collection of short stories, reflecting culture and simple lives around Mumbai (Bombay) in India, that the author Ken Doyle is presumably intimately familiar with. While short, these stories from Ken give a reader a pleasant, fulfilling, view of lives shaped by empathy, compassion, beauty, and, above all, simplicity.
A diligent reader will see a progression in Ken's skills in the stories in this work. Moving from a story that concludes rather abruptly, to another that is a mite verbose, he concludes this Omnibus edition with a vivid tale filled with interesting characters and a gentle yet complex plot. While a picky editor may find minor flaws in language employed, or with linearity in narrative progression, Ken's skill in portraying sympathetic characters, in his simple and pleasant stories, is quite advanced.
While I'm not one to regularly read short stories, I found Ken's stories quite enjoyable, and meaningful, and do recommend them to the young and the veteran reader alike, especially those inclined to learning of other cultures.
A diligent reader will see a progression in Ken's skills in the stories in this work. Moving from a story that concludes rather abruptly, to another that is a mite verbose, he concludes this Omnibus edition with a vivid tale filled with interesting characters and a gentle yet complex plot. While a picky editor may find minor flaws in language employed, or with linearity in narrative progression, Ken's skill in portraying sympathetic characters, in his simple and pleasant stories, is quite advanced.
While I'm not one to regularly read short stories, I found Ken's stories quite enjoyable, and meaningful, and do recommend them to the young and the veteran reader alike, especially those inclined to learning of other cultures.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews