Love and Longing in Bombay

In this book, Chandra provides 5 short stories (although one is more novella size), presented in a somewhat contrived format utilising a Scheherezade type story-teller device. This was pretty thin, but insignificant enough not to detract.
The five stories were mixed and somewhat eclectic. Each story has a title attributed with a Hindu concept (sort of based on Purusartha), loosely described below with each story.

Dharma (righteousness, moral values)
A ghost story featuring an army officer who returns home to sell the family home, and is forced to face his childhood due to a haunting. 4/5 Good pace

Shakti (cosmic energy, divine feminine creative power)
Two Bombay high society women carry out a socialite battle for the adulation of their common friends. Underhand tactics, and financial controls. 3.5/5 Light but amusing.

Kama (pleasure, love, psychological values)
Kama is the longest of the stories, sits in the middle and makes up the bulk of the book. A police murder mystery story - our protagonist is a police detective, working on the murder of a respected middle class father from a traditional family. Mixed in is the detective's own life complications, including the impending marriage of his ex-wife. 4.5/5

Artha (prosperity, economic values)
A startup software company tries to figure out why their accounting software is constantly ‘out' by a small amount, with one of the characters also trying to figure out why his boyfriend has disappeared. 2/5 Felt dated around the IT details, and the story line didn't hold my attention.

Shanti (inner peace)
The narrator finds his soul mate, in a complicated story or stories. This is the only story not set in Bombay, but sets up the rest of the book retrospectively, as it ends in Bombay. Was a bit long an complicated by some of the stories. 3/5

So overall that averages out to 3.4 / 5, so I guess I am obliged to round it down to 3/5.