The individual stories, however, are extremely interesting. However, as a reader, I found the execution of the same confusing- there are too many names mentioned and that too passingly as the characters get through the formalities of immigration. Her idea of introducing all the characters in the beginning – at least their names – and then delve into each of their lives, one by one, in subsequent stories is clever. All of them have reached US and are going to, perhaps, the same town but are from different strata and parts of India. The book starts off with a chapter at the airport, where she looks at the travellers.
It is a collection of short stories – of lives of different people and how they go about the various challenges, relationships in their lives. Going by the overall tone of the introduction, I presumed that this was a non-fiction book- but it is not. How is it to make one’s home in the Land of Dreams? The author, Tanushree Ghosh, who has lived and worked in the US for over a decade, brings us this other perspective – that of immigrants who have moved to the US and are living there. This book, therefore, offers an extremely interesting premise. Not surprising, the efforts made to get to that country. To most Indians, irrespective of strata, therefore, America has been that aspirational land to which one must look up to. “The Land of Dreams” “The Land of the Brave and Free” – is that not how most Indians view the United States of America? Added to that is the American way of life that most Indians know about only via TV shows and movies.
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