Soul of Music and other music stories from South India

Conservative Chennai, South India's cultural capital is a crucible for prosperity, and tradition at crossroads. Set amidst its exclusive Carnatic community known for its fondness for cricket, South Indian classical/Carnatic music and determinedly staid ways, Soul of Music comprises modern music stories that meander through friction between generations and perceived hierarchy of professions. Written in the literary fiction genre, the motley group of stories are a fictitious collection of music tales. Soul of Music is a debut collection of ten short stories set in the relaxed South Indian atmosphere. Here, an improvised life—mirroring elements of music and writing—exposes the secret of a music connoisseur; an editor with a multi-disciplinary background manipulates a junior colleague; a retired stock broker falls prey to a musician father's terrible doing; musicians abandon a concert hall due to a terrible secret underlying its prosperity; a musician sets out into the music city to find the soul of music; a music professor makes a mistake after successful scheming; a music teacher’s ambition and greed for fame and fortune affects her singer son; a retired banker wife fading into dementia avenges her philandering US-returned professor husband; two criminals kidnap a musician’s son which goes awry; and a teenage singer escapes a possessive fiancé to pursue a musical career.