Sharad, in Bombay, is an unassuming, accommodating sort, who winds up almost casually in various situations as he grows up. His story begins in childhood with the suicide of his father, and the immediate mental breakdown of his mother. Brought up by his grandmother, he grows up to become a nonconforming open-minded journalist involved in Bombay’s union and communal politics. After several not-very-exciting jobs and relationships he marries an Indo-Canadian woman, Gunjun, from Toronto whom he meets via a photo and emails. He moves to Canada knowing almost nothing about the country and subsequently struggles with jobs, marriage, identity, and the weather. A vivid existential novel about an uncomfortable uncompromising new Canadian.

“Poignant and highly rereadable, the book evokes Rohinton Mistry’s Tales from Firozsha Baag, from 1987, in its half-here, half-there tales.”

—Sheheryar B. Sheikh from Bookworm, No 134, Literary Review of Canada

“The stories in Trachea are at once intimate and heartwarming. In his spare, unsentimental prose, Mayank Bhatt chronicles the life of the protagonist, deftly weaving the personal with the larger social and political fabric of the time. His writing evokes the spirit of old Bombay, while an understated humour and irony shine through the pages.”
—Shaukat Ajmeri, author of Keepers of the Faith and Open Season

“In his trademark unvarnished writing style, Mayank Bhatt brings us multifarious stories about the people, relationships, and social worlds in both India and Toronto, that his character, Sharad, encounters on his life journey. I was compelled to follow Sharad from first to last, in this work that reveals itself as a bildungsroman. Bhatt takes us through places, events and episodes both complex and surprising, that illuminate the difficulties—and fascinations—of leaving one’s home and country, and moving to another. Also illuminated are the struggles and joys of belonging to a family and community, and of being faithful, at the same time, to one’s own dreams and aspirations.”
—Dawn Promislow, author of Jewels and Other Stories and Wan