A solid story lost to author’s catalogue of political concerns.
Chapter 1, second line (page no. 15): Our protagonist tells us that he has recently started teaching at a public college affiliated with the Delhi University. However, when he travels back to his hometown (to drop off Sarfaraz, his best friend) we see him telling an acquaintance of his father that he teaches at the University of Naalanda (page 130). He did pick up a six-month stint at the latter but that happens much later in the novel.
Chapter 4, page no. 63: Our protagonist tells us that the summer break was over and a new semester had started. He explicitly mentions the month of July. As the story moves and the next scene opens, we see – on page no. 65 – that it was cold outside, on the Delhi University campus. An enjoyable one! And we also see four young girls in cardigans and shawls. Whoa!
Chapter 8, Winter 2014 section: The scene opens with our protagonist’s mother sitting in the morning sun and fanning herself. We are told that it is the beginning of the winter. Fine, I’d buy that. However, on the very next page i.e., on page 133, and the events of the same day, we see our protagonist donning a sweater and shivering in cold. Argh!
Chapter 16, page no 292, 307: We are in the middle of the climax scene. Our protagonist is on the run along with Minti. It is cold out there but we are shown paddy fields. Not just once, but a couple of times. It doesn’t happen that way, Aruni. Paddy is harvested by the end of October. We see fog, we see our protagonist shivering in cold water; his feet losing sensation; his thinking of death. It should have been a wheat field. Some homework would have helped the author there.
Our author had problems with the idea of India, with Hinduism, with the BJP and with the rabid Hindutva playing out on the streets. The author, the protagonist and the characters in the book are left-leaning and they all, at some point of time, had dreamt of a free Assam and a free Kashmir. Of course they can; freedom of speech and the right to dissent is what they eat, drink and sleep. However, there was just too much of it in the book. Arundhati Roy did something similar in the Ministry Of Utmost Happiness – the protagonist had to deal with everything wrong that the Rabid Right Party (and the then CM of Gujarat) did – to the point where it all looked forced. Our author did that too.
The prose is decent. The action beats are forced. And the sections inserted to make it look atmospheric just don’t work. We don’t get to sit with the characters and feel them. We didn’t feel their pain; or their happiness. We just see the leftists making pasta, buying mascarpone cheese, sipping wine, making sangrias and talking about utopia.
The climax had a chance to show more, to do more. A lot had happened in and around Murthal during that turbulent phase. The author could have shown a lot more. The rapes, the looting, the arson – it was ugly but the author swam across in a haste.
Disappointing read. From an author who read Allan Hollinghurst.
