Although Farrukh Dhondy has written very readable books, many readers will remember his columns. His style—sharp, funny, irreverent—is just right for a fraught subject like adultery.
No wonder then that this collection of short stories keeps you turning the pages with wry amusement. Almost all the stories are of East-West encounters and most of them are full of chicanery and deception, with the Artful Dodgers all being Indians and the victims usually Westerners. If Farrukh Dhondy weren’t a brown man himself (even if as a Parsi he is a lighter shade of brown), he would be accused of racism! But in these days of scams and large-scale wheeler-dealing, the small-time crooks that crop up in Adultery are amateurs, whose ambition doesn’t match their imagination.
Many of Dhondy’s clever stories are told through today’s language of e-mail; one e-mail following another so that in one short tale we might get three or four narrators. The device makes the stories move swiftly to their often unexpected denouement.
The title story is different in tone and longer in length (almost a novella). It’s about love and longing, and the inability to communicate even when the protagonist has a wonderful way with words. Dhondy’s Indian poet married to an English woman is a brilliant creation, his fragile feelings hidden under a mask of brittle world-weariness. The fast-moving narrative compels you to read it too quickly, when actually you should linger and savour its luminous intelligence.
