FICTION ISBN: 9781894770460 Paper $20.95; 208 pages Pub Date: October 15, 2008   Buy this book:   Amazon  can us Barnes & Noble us Chapters.Indigo can Independent  can  us Shopping for Sabzi, interweaves themes of ambition and identity in the lives of its brash, young, and successful Indo-Canadian and Indo-American characters. Poignant and humorous, this collection of stories describes the jockeying for social status, successful love, career fulfillment and personal meaning and the anxieties of its characters as they balance the old ways with the new and reflect on the passage of time. In “Piece of Cake,” Raj, transplanted from Houston to New York, and dating a European photographer, is forced to confront Neha, his ex-girlfriend, an anorexic suffering a major relapse. In “Spick and Span,” Shilpa doubts the path she has taken when she’s asked to help matchmake at a Gujarati marriage convention in New Jersey. “Potatoes and Punjabis are Everywhere” follows Happy, a college student, during his first days in Toronto, as he encounters a series of strangers that compel him to consider cutting or keeping his still- unshorn hair. In “Woh Auntie Hai Yahan (The Auntie is Here),” Kusum, a recently widowed real estate agent in the Toronto suburbs, struggles to repair her life, finding inspiration from Bollywood dance lessons given by her friend’s teenage daughter. Nitin Deckha was born in London, England, and raised in Toronto. His stories have appeared in Existere, Anokhi, and at www.sulekha.com and in collected works. Deckha holds a PhD in Anthropology from Rice University, Houston and teaches social sciences in Toronto. His journalism occasionally appears in Desi Life, a Toronto Star magazine.