Kelly is an instructor of creative writing and literature at Oakton Community College in Illinois. In this essay, Kelly examines the relationship between the main story told in Chandra's story and the brief section that precedes it.

Vikram Chandra's short story "Dharma," the first piece in his collection Love and Longing in Bombay, links two separate and distinct situations. The main story is the long tale of Major General Jago Antia, who is preoccupied with identifying and then removing a ghost that haunts his childhood home. Jago Antia's life is explained at length, starting with his first awareness of a problem on his fiftieth birthday, proceeding through his acceptance of the fact that there might be supernatural forces at work in his life, and then ending when he comes to peace with the past that haunts him. In the process, the narrative flashes back to various points...