Tag Archives: Fiction

Later, after her death, she seems to carry the legacy of sexual promiscuity and is a prime example of how a woman’s reputation is shaped, created and navigated in a man’s world. Her daughter, Priya, comes to terms with her own sexuality and sexual identity much later, but strangely when sexually assaulted, the act of violence is deemed to be a necessity to ‘make her a normal straight woman again’ (p. 156). One must read this in the context of the social fabric of the 1960s but also realize that such prejudice and ignorance about gender roles and sexuality are prevalent to this day.

‘The Fiend’, mute spectators who are cursed with self-awareness and introspection as they watch, with a sense of alienation and existential angst, the world changing so fast as to become unrecognizable and, in the process, unhousing them from all that gave them a sense of belonging to it. These characters form a quartet with the sculptor in the final story, ‘The State’, as he hefts a hammer in a futile but courageous attempt to undo his crime of complicity in the creation of a dictator who set out disguised as a revolutionary before his true face was revealed.
‘The Blackout’ and ‘Smell’ are both richly complex allegories and the fabular structure serves as a window into a world that is disorienting in its unpredictability and

An interesting one titled ‘Shhh’ is about his grandmother who handed him a spiky shell before she died. She, the wife of one of the native officers in the Malabar Special Police, along with her small daughter, had gone out of curiosity to see Gandhiji. There were milling crowds but all he did was to raise his finger to his lips, and everyone went silent. The soldier who was on guard came and stood in front of the lady at which the crowd felt disturbed. She bent down and picked up something. Gandhiji caught her eye and signalled that she should leave. The crowd parted and she went home.

One of the techniques that Alkazi uses to honour his side of this bargain is to frequently recreate whatever has happened in a kind of mental action replay by his chief detectives so that the reader is also reminded of all the variables that are colliding in this labyrinthine plot. As Fernandes suggests, ‘Re-enter the scene imaginatively in a way, and it is amazing how much detail you will recall.’ What makes Alkazi’s mystery novel so fascinating is that each time this happens, a vivid picture does emerge but with a twist.

The fact that many stories situate such violence during the time of pujo, a time of celebration, only underlines the extent of deprivation the labourers are subjected to. Of course, many of the stories—such as ‘Saluk Flowers Have Bloomed’—also suggest the gendered nature of the violence and sexual exploitation women labourers were subjected to by the British who employed them in these tea estates.

Maya regularly attends meetings of the Natural History Society and the Geographical Society where she (and in the process, the reader) gets to meet and converse with eminent thinkers and scientists of the time. These meetings and deliberations are a fascinating insight into the debates raging at the time in not only the political field, but in the cultural and social arenas as well.

‘In 2018, at a meeting in Meerut in the northern State of Uttar Pradesh, the chief of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Mohan Bhagwat addressed one of the largest conclaves of RSS workers on a crisp February morning. In his long address to more than a thousand people, he said, “In India, one may follow a different eating habit, way of worshipping gods, philosophy, language and culture.

He has travelled widely, cavorted with celebrities, vacationed frequently and consumed copious quantities of vodka. The text makes little attempt to temper this presentation, leaning into the spectacle of a life lived large. But it unfortunately becomes the most glaring issue in the book—the repetitive references to luxurious hotels and expensive food and brands. It is tiring and begins to feel shallow rather quickly. In ‘An Accident Foretold: Goa’, their hotel’s name—Taj Holiday Village—is cited so frequently that it begins to feel less like a setting and more like a refrain.

India are used by the author to periodically punctuate the text and convey Halide’s impressions in her own words. In fact, the title itself borrows from Halide’s description of her feelings for India. On the other hand are the three girls: Zoya, making her way from doodling to creating ‘national’ art, Nuran, scholarly and contemplating marriage, and Aisha, who sees herself as a ‘modern’ woman aiming to become a lawyer.

While Sister Agatha is a forceful, pragmatic personality, whose ‘outsider’ tag becomes useful, especially in getting access to certain spaces, where her ‘foreigner’ tag and skin colour open doors that may be closed to ordinary Indians. Avtar is the essential counterpoint to Agatha. He is rooted in the history and complexity of Old Delhi, and his own personal experience with displacement allows him to empathize with the missing Pakistani pilgrim. Together this unlikely duo of detective and assistant get caught up in non-stop adventure, starting with a robbery they witness just outside the hotel,

Iyengar’s women, in particular, stand out. They refuse to remain confined by the roles assigned to them; they are flawed, capable, contradictory, vulnerable, and intensely alive. Though their lives are shaped by limits and pressure, their choices—often brave,

The why of the crime becomes more important. However, these sections often err on the side of over-articulation. Motivations are explained and justified at length. In seeking to make the psychology legible, the narrative occasionally flattens it. The repetition of grievance, resentment and self-pity risks turning complexity into monotony.

her 14-year-old brother who has just entered the ‘Pew Burty Club’, has a bigger share of questions without answers than her even though he is older. Their Ma is a far cry from a typical mother; she tells her children that she picked them from a shop when she was in the mood and had to keep them as the shop didn’t have a return policy. She forgets basic household chores on many days,

Where the novel shines is in Oleksiy’s fraught relationship with his childhood friend-turned-enemy Ruslan. Their history is marred by betrayal yet punctuated by unexpected loyalty. It adds genuine complexity, exploring how masculinity, loyalty and moral choice are entangled within systems of power.

The novel is driven by its varied and eclectic characters—from the idealistic Nirupama, bound in her Left ideology, to Imogen, the young English lady, and Kedar, the art lover, to Gopal—the street-smart pickpocket turned gangster. Their lives, as different as they are, intertwine with others at the hotel—Jeremy Lambert, working on war intelligence, the French chef Paul Bonnemaison, and others who frequent the titular hotel, including sex workers. This wide variety of characters ends up creating a dynamic interplay between personal ambitions, history and memory. Their lives are framed by a first-person narrator, the son of Nirupama,

Thematically, No Place to Call My Own is a palimpsest of pressing concerns—gender, religion, and the precariousness of artistic ambition in a mercurial world. Gufran situates Sophia’s personal travails against the backdrop of seismic socio-political upheavals: the #MeToo movement, the Citizenship Amendment Act protests, and the global pandemic. These events are not mere historical markers but active agents that exacerbate Sophia’s sense of unbelonging.

All three works share a concern with moral ambiguity. Their characters are not heroes or villains, but flawed individuals navigating a world where ethical clarity is a luxury. Whether it is the grieving artist in The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, the conflicted investigators in Affairs of Deception, or the scheming insiders of Party to a Crime, the protagonists are all bound by the consequences of choices they can neither fully justify nor entirely regret.

The novel is narrated by seventeen characters, with the notable exception of Burhan, the voiceless victim, with several narrating multiple chapters; over thirty-three unnumbered ones, being opened and closed by Nabeesumma and Reyhana in that order. Nabeesumma, who is a character as important as Reyhana,

Inquilab’s narrative privileges the political movement led by Gandhi and the Congress, and evades the vast complexities of social and political turmoil that India experienced. One only has to look at similar other contemporary literary work—particularly the writings by Munshi Premchand such as Seva Sadan, Rangbhoomi,

Today, that same Majnu Ka Tila, now ‘MKT’ to Gen Z, features in Ankush Saikia’s ‘Chang Town’, where Northeastern students navigate racism, longing, and identity in the capital’s northern campuses. The two stories could not be more different in form or sentiment, yet together they trace a micro-history of urban transformation: a city seen through the same coordinates, altered by time. There are many such resonances across the book. Jalil’s Introduction wisely sets them up. Stories in Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, English and Malayalam reflect Delhi’s many avatars—as imperial capital, partition city, bureaucratic core, queer subculture, site of migration and protest.