Karan Mahajan
Not that I read a lot of fiction that can be called optimistic in subject or outlook, but this one was particularly depressing. I would even call it cruel because the insights on human behaviour are sharp and used effectively.. Ironically, I am not being negative about it, it’s just the way it is.
The book begins with an explosion, and then it simmers, before boiling towards another. That’s as much as I will spoil it for you. The explosion was not even something major, on a relative scale – “the death toll would be only thirteen dead with thirty injured — a small bomb. A typical bomb. A bomb of small consequences.”
But think about it, after the media makes a few meal tickets out of it in the next few days, after the government has done their song and dance, and after the NGOs have raised their point (again) what happens to the lives of the thirty injured, the families of the thirteen dead, and what goes on in the minds of the those who planted the bomb? This book is exactly that.
The narrative is not entirely linear, and the point of view shifts from victim to terrorist to family and so on. The thinking and making of the bomb is only a part of the book. It’s in the characters that the real story lies. From bleak towns and a bustling metropolis, these are ordinary folks whose lives are upended. Even when they move away from the scene of the crime, the tragedy follows them – as with Mansoor in the US. Nothing remains the same, even when their lives get back to daily drudgery. It’s as though everything from then on is framed with reference to the explosion.
But despite that, these are layered and diverse characters, and the author shows great skill in showing nuances of the changes in their thinking and behaviour. One is forced to believe in the reality of the characters. Even the terrorists, who are not radical Muslims, but more of political activists with a sense of economics, it would seem!
If you can take a bit of fatalism, I’d recommend this.
