Poona Company

‘A beautiful collection, full of affection and an extremely funny book.’ – Salman RushdieIn this collection of nine linked stories, young Farrukh recounts his years growing up in a Parsi neighbourhood in Poona during the fifties.Sarbatwalla Chowk is the centre of the world of those he remembers: Eddie the Inventor and his Big Boy; the massive Samson, who lives on the street and refuses to get a job; the blind man and his guide, Black Dog, supposed to have special powers; Terry Soakum, the Australian crybaby who has his eye on Farrukh’s swimming trunks; Confession D’Souza, the scholarship boy who loses favour with the Jesuits over a ‘dirty book’ and later becomes a courageous journalist; Chamak, a permanent pimple on his big nose, who wants to win the college elections and the heart of ‘Jhansi-ki-Rani’. There’s Farrukh himself, distressed over a pair of broken spectacles, or a knife-fight at school.Warm, funny, sometimes sad but always delightful, Poona Company seems as fresh as when it was first published in 1980, and presents a picture of small-town India observed with a sharp eye and a fond heart – a combination still rare in Indian fiction.