Commentary on Our Fallen Times
Jigyasa Sogarwal
HURDA by By Atharva Pandit Bloomsbury India, 2023, 326 pp., INR 699.00
February 2024, volume 48, No 2

Hurda is a riveting read. Three young children—sisters, the eldest among them aged 14, are missing and subsequently found dead. They are survived by a poor family of three: a widowed mother, and grandparents. The setting is rural Maharashtra. From this simple premise takes off a complicated serpentine story: a path of solving the murder mystery. Thereafter, Hurda turns into a chaotic rumination on the social, political and economic conditions of our times.

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