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R. Raj Rao. One Day I Locked My Flat in Soul City. New Delhi. Rupa. 1995. 110 pages. Rs50. ISBN 81-7167-241-8.
R. Raj Rao is a published and anthologized poet, as well as a professor in the Department of English at the University of Pune. The uneven collection of twelve short stories One Day I Locked My Flat in Soul City represents Rao's first published work of fiction. I use the word uneven to describe this collection, because Rao shows huge promise of becoming a major writer but displays weakness when he ventures beyond the parameters of what he knows best, which is India.
With the exception of the story "Moonlight Tandoori," which is set in England, the volume's central problem involves the stories that are set outside India. "A Few Days in Trinidad," "Go For It," and "The Marxist" are set in Trinidad, Los Angeles, and Greece respectively. In every case these expatriate tales lack any sense of closure, which need not be a problem if handled properly; but in these three instances, lack of closure makes the stories seem more like the clumsy observations of an unsophisticated tourist than the work of a...