In this interconnected collection, an Indian-American woman visits her mother in Mumbai and hears family stories. When Saya, long settled in New Jersey, comes home to Mumbai, seeing extended family and listening to them talk about old times is an essential part of the visit. Each story gets a chapter, as in “Cardamom,” about Hero Harish, a cousin on Saya’s father’s side who came to Mumbai to break into Bollywood films and somehow got a screen test: “He had to lend expression to the word cardamom in as many ways as he could. By the end of the afternoon, everyone was rolling on the floor laughing at his acting.” Harish flailed in life and finally disappeared; now, though, his son is a child star. Other stories include how Mad-dog Mahaan earned his nickname, why Aunt Dina still sleeps on a daybed and not her enormous custom-made canopied bed, how Saya’s mother found solace for her lonely childhood in sitar music, and the strange story of Shanti, who gained a reputation for black magic. In her second book, Chawla (The Shenanigans of Time, 2013) again displays a gift for revealing character, history, and culture through powerful vignettes. For example, in “Swamini,” Saya’s mother puzzles over how her niece Geet could be content living in an ashram. Geet seemed “wonderfully composed and happy” when she visited her in the city, yet the closer her aunt “came to the laughter of children, the buzzing of commerce, of life teeming with expectation and regeneration, the more my heart sank.” Geet’s mother doesn’t give up trying to woo her daughter back from a life “without friends, family, a husband’s love.” Western readers who prize individualism may see this as intrusive, but for Saya, this is a story about the tenacity of a mother who loves her child and will always try to rescue her. Chawla’s masala mix of settings includes Bollywood, Mumbai’s newly built apartments, a rural village, and a Catholic school, nicely showcasing the breadth of this family’s experience. MUMBAI MORNINGS – Engaging, colorful stories connected by family and differentiated by setting.