A Portrayal of a Cross Section of India in Lavanya Sankaran's The Red Carpet

Lavanya Sankaran is a critically acclaimed Indian writer in English and her first book, The Red Carpet (2005) is a well-received short story collection containing eight short stories. These stories articulate the struggles between the old-fashioned and new cosmopolitan world of Bangalore. Ageless tradition and modern technology collide in this witty yet deeply compassionate collection set in contemporary India. The stories in The Red Carpet address contemporary issues humorously, such as the cultural tensions in India impacted by globalisation. The characters in the stories belong to different social backgrounds and upbringings, and how they react to the societal fluctuations from a traditional one to a reasonably modern one forms the crux of the stories. She has her finger on the economic pulse that motivates many of these striving young characters, all from the cosmopolitan city of Bangalore, to embrace modern technological changes at the peril of rupturing family and culture. Through a delicious potpourri of characters, all band in Bangalore (Bangaluru), India’s main outsourcing and IT hub, Sankaran satirically reveals the wide chasm between the East and the West, the young and the old, the traditional and the modern, and the religious and the secular. More than the clash between tradition and modernity, Sankaran is fascinated by the nuances and contrasts, the different degrees of tension that keep the wires humming in a city like Bangalore. Wry humour and a delicious grasp of friction between generations in Bangalore, India’s own Silicon valley, are the hallmarks of Lavanya Sankaran’s fresh and original talent.