Books: “The Best Possible Experience” by Nishanth Injam
When I was in Nepal this past spring, I enjoyed two of the most sumptuous Indian meals in memory. There were so many different foods served at the table, I didn’t know where to begin or which one I liked more.
That’s the satisfaction I feel after reading “The Best Possible Experience,” a brand new collection of short stories by Indian-born Nishanth Injam. He seems to be nailing NPR interviews right and left, and simultaneously picking up literary awards at lightning speed. It’s not difficult to see why.
The best stories in this delectable collection are concerned with the troubles South Indians have assimilating into American culture. “The Immigrant” is the tale of a student from a poor village in India who resorts to starving himself and sleeping on park benches in Boston to save money. In “The Protocol,” an Indian man conspires to marry an American woman so he can remain in the US when his green card expires. Question: will it work?
But Injam doesn’t just focus on the Indian diaspora. In “The Bus,” a spooky, Twilight-Zone-type tale, every time a passenger uses the rest room on an intercity bus in India, he or she suddenly disappears from sight. In the title story, an overprotective Indian tour guide in Goa arranges for his son to become an airline pilot so he can have a child he can be proud of.
These stories reflect Injam’s own journey: growing up in a small town in India, he struggled to adapt to life in the U.S. as a software engineer. But he found himself pouring his immigration experiences into short stories. A lucky career path change for him—and for us.
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