A Coming-of-Age Treat

Shubnum Khan’s The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is an imperial Victorian Indian Gothic tale that echoes the Dak Bungalow stories, which explore the unexplained mysteries of the great havelis of the Indian Maharajas. The novel enfolds two plots—one of Sana Khan—the protagonist who, after her mother’s death, moves to an abandoned gigantic mansion (Akbar Manzil) in East Africa; and that of the tragic love story of Akbar Ali and Meena Begum—the past residents of the haunted mansion. If a Mohammedan version of a filthy rich Ulysses’s life was to be imagined with a Gothic-Romantic cosmos that thrives on the borders of British India and Africa, Shubnum Khan’s novel would become a marker. Like Ulysses, who is intoxicated by the adventures of travel, Akbar wants to satisfy his thirst to travel and explore the world journeying through the seas. Essentially, Khan’s story finds momentum when Sana discovers Meena’s decades-old diary and leads her to unlock the catastrophic secrets that Akbar Manzil nestles—secrets that the djinn lurking in the mansion is reluctant to reveal.