-Megha Majumdar
A Burning train, a burning passion, a few burning desires, burning of some principles, ideologies and a burning country.
“I feel like a straw doll, dressed up for play, at the mercy of callous children who decide my fate.”
Ok, you might’ve bought this book already. That’s the thing about books nominated for several prizes. I’ve got ‘A girl in white cotton’ and ‘Moustache’ too (I’ve not been able to get past 25 pages in both though). The pressure is real.
Have you seen ‘Patal-lok’? I am not obsessed with this show but hear me out. It tells us a story, it tells us how it is very easy to grip an audience to a criminal story that has a Muslim character (or any other minority) and a Trans character and the story is sure to be a blockbuster; Perfect mix for headlines in the current times. This book has both (Jiivan, the Muslim Girl accused for a major terrorist activity and Lovely, a Hijra who happens to have a major connecting role) and also, a ‘Masterji’ (the one in the show liked dogs though) .The book could’ve been better apt as a short film or series, the manifold layers that a book specializes in providing to the story was not utilized well according to me. This concept could’ve been made lip-smacking delicious but it was tasteless more or less.
The book was well-written and I craved for more. My personal favorites were ‘interludes’ that lead me to the scenes about side characters, minor characters. They were good insights. For instance, there was a page with all the space rather negative space for Jivan’s parents, that space gave me chills and a hope that it’s going to get better from now. But, throughout the book, I felt there was a lack of depth in the 3 major characters. They had so many pages all to themselves unlike the minor characters. I was totally impressed by how the language changed with each point of view but even with so much scope the character backgrounds were not convincing. I couldn’t empathize with them, just for the fact that one of them was a Hijra, one a muslim and third a middle-class school teacher. The narrative made it clear that they were all vulnerable and craved for a power. But so many pages, so many words couldn’t do the justice required to how far the characters emotions and all that rage would’ve taken them.
The burning I expected was missing for me. The fire within was ignited with a line or two but it blew off in another one or two in a whiff. It couldn’t retain its ferocity and warmth.
