Jayant Kaikini’s latest book, Mithun Number Two, is a collection of sixteen story-vignettes set in Mumbai in the 1990s to early 2000s. Kaikini brings his tender yet unflinching gaze to working-class characters in Mumbai who rise above the miasma of their situations not through story resolutions, but through the writer’s skilful unearthing of inner lives and his attention to luminous moments of connection. Elegantly translated by Tejaswini Niranjana, the energetic, often playful prose reads seamlessly while hinting at the flavours and surprises of the original Kannada writing. In the words of one of Kaikini’s characters, this collection leaves the reader ‘dumbstruck’ at the ‘magical appearance of beauty amidst [the] dirt and disease’ of Mumbai life.
Kaikini’s characters are ordinary students, housewives and insurance officers as well as more unconventional types like mimicry performers, trapeze artists, stuntmen, and Bollywood aspirants. They have made Mumbai their emotional home, though several are recent migrants from Karnataka. All must survive in difficult situations; many must do so with no escape hatch.