Booker Buzz: The Countdown

We review the Super Six right here.

Day 6, Book 6 : Animal's People by Indra Sinha

This cussed lone ranger on four feet, playing out a Bhopal that would be the coldest man’s Khaufpur, befriends you like many self-loathing narrators of great and not-so-great literature, so much so, that his attempts at engaging you are as familiar (and efficient) as practiced pick-up lines (I’m not clever like you. I can’t make fancy rissoles of each word. Blue kingfishers won’t suddenly fly out of my mouth. If you want my story you’ll have to put up with how I tell it.) Consequently, you don’t ever befriend him, shrivel up at his pathetic repetitions of ‘don’t pity me’, open up a little when Zafar bhai (the face of the anti-Union Carbide movement) and Nisha make their recognizably human (constantly pitted against Janwar’s insistence on his animal-hood) space in pages that do much in it’s attempt at re-creating a world post-climax (Khaufpur is an ill-disguised metaphor for a still-poisoned Bhopal). What’s obvious is that Indra Sinha’s strength of narrative has nothing to do with his writing prowess (which is unshakeably that of a copywriter’s), but does have to do with a genuine ability to create atmosphere, and he’s one who would never shy away from using the most exotic tropes to re-create a small town in India. And clearly, that still works.

Booker Quotient: It’s a human interest story; it’s the weakness and strength of victims and saviours. And how the two often change places. Also, the narrator sprinkles this human-interest piece with enough lund and chut and motherfucks and sisterfucks; and his sexual frustration, his hard-on every few paragraphs, his consequent sexual jealousy from those who can walk straight; putting it right up there on the misery’s-got-glitz meter.

go(ld)phish