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Addicted to Fiction? Here’s Your Emergency Read-covery Kit

Ready to unleash your inner bookworm? The one that’s addicted to fiction? Yes?
Well then buckle up for a whirlwind tour of 12 sizzling fiction reads, each one a portal to a world as unique as you are. From chilling thrillers to laugh-out-loud rom-coms, we’ve got something for every mood.

Are you ready to get hooked? 😉

 

The Housemaid's Secret
The Housemaid’s Secret || Freida McFadden

“Don’t go in the guest bedroom.” A shadow falls on Douglas Garrick’s face as he touches the door with his fingertips. “My wife… she’s very ill.” As he continues showing me their incredible penthouse apartment, I have a terrible feeling about the woman behind closed doors. But I can’t risk losing this job-not if I want to keep my darkest secret safe…

This absolutely explosive and shockingly twisty sequel to international bestseller The Housemaid will keep you racing through the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose, The Woman in the Window and Gone Girl will be totally hooked! This book can also be enjoyed as a standalone.

 

Strange Sally Diamond
Strange Sally Diamond || Liz Nugent

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.

Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.

But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally’s life will be thrown into chaos once again…

 

The Last Devil to Die
The Last Devil to Die || Richard Osman

Shocking news reaches the Thursday Murder Club.

An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.

As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.

With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?

 

None Of This is True
None Of This Is True || Lisa Jewell

Celebrating her 45th birthday at her local pub, podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie is also celebrating her 45th.

A few days later, they bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie says she thinks she would be an interesting subject for Alix’s podcast. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Alix agrees to a trial interview and indeed, Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated. Aix finds her unsettling but can’t quite resist the temptation to keep digging.

Slowly Alix starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it Josie has cajoled her way into Alix’s life – and into her home.

Soon Alix begins to wonder who is Josie Fair really? And what has she done?

 

Happy Place
Happy Place || Emily Henry

Two exes. One pact.
Could this holiday change everything?

Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple – they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.

Every year, they take a holiday from their lives to drink far too much wine with their favourite people in the world.

Except this year, they are lying through their teeth, because Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago. And they still haven’t told anyone.

But the cottage is for sale so this is the last time they’ll all be here together. They can’t bear to break their best friends’ hearts so they’ll fake it for one more week.

But how can you pretend to be in love – and get away with it – in front of the people who know you best?

 

Pineapple Street
Pineapple Street || Jenny Jackson

Pineapple Street in Brooklyn Heights is one of New York City’s most desirable residences, and home to the glamorous and well-connected Stockton family . . .

Darley, the eldest daughter, has never had to worry about money. She followed her heart, trading her job and her inheritance for motherhood – but ended up sacrificing more of herself than she ever intended.

Sasha is marrying into the wealthy Stockton family, who are worlds apart from her own. She feels like the outsider, trying to navigate their impenetrable traditions and please her new mother-in-law – plus her hesitancy to sign a pre-nup has everyone questioning her true intentions.

Georgiana, the youngest, is falling in love with someone she can’t (and really shouldn’t) have – and is forced to confront the kind of person she wants to be.

Witty, escapist and full of heart, with an unmissable cast of loveable – if flawed – characters, Pineapple Street is a beautifully observed novel about the complexities of family dynamics, the miles between the haves and the have-notes, and the all-consuming insanity of first love – while also asking the age-old question, can money really buy you happiness?

 

The Housemaid
The Housemaid || Freida McFadden

Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like.
Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how Andrew, her husband, seems more broken every day.
But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.
I soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…

I try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon found out…and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

I reassure myself though: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

 

Romantic Comedy
Romantic Comedy || Curtis Sittenfeld

With a series of heartbreaks under her belt, Sally Milz – successful script writer for a legendary late-night TV comedy show – has long abandoned the search for love.

But when her friend and fellow writer begins to date a glamorous actress, he joins the growing club of interesting but average-looking men who get romantically involved with accomplished, beautiful women.

Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch, poking fun at this ‘social rule’. The reverse never happens for a woman.

Then Sally meets Noah, a pop idol with a reputation for dating models. But this isn’t a romantic comedy – it’s real life.

Would someone like him ever date someone like her?

 

Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Wrong Place, Wrong Time || Gillian McAllister

It’s late. You’re waiting up for your son.

Then you spot him: he’s with someone. And – you can’t believe what you see – your funny, happy teenage boy stabs this stranger.

You don’t know who. You don’t know why. You only know your son is charged with murder. His future is lost.

That night you fall asleep in despair. But when you wake . . . it is yesterday. The day before the murder.

Somewhere in the past lie the answers – a reason for this crime.

And your only chance to stop it . . .

 

The Woman Who Lied
The Woman Who Lied || Claire Douglas

Emilia Ward lives quietly in suburban London with her husband and two children.
Just an ordinary wife and mother. But also a bestselling crime writer.
When she starts writing her tenth Detective Miranda Moody novel, however, life takes a frightening turn: an incident straight out of one of her novels occurs in real life.
Just an unsettling coincidence, she thinks. Until it happens again.
Then someone she knows dies exactly like a victim in the book she’s still writing . . .

Why is someone doing this?
How do they know what she is writing?
And how long before Emilia and her family are next?

 

 

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow || Gabrielle Zevin

 

Two kids meet in a hospital gaming room in 1987. One is visiting her sister, the other is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there. Their love of video games becomes a shared world — of joy, escape and fierce competition. But all too soon that time is over, fades from view.

When the pair spot each other eight years later in a crowded train station, they are catapulted back to that moment. The spark is immediate, and together they get to work on what they love – making games to delight, challenge and immerse players, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives. Their collaborations make them superstars.

This is the story of the perfect worlds Sadie and Sam build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes us on a dazzling imaginative quest as it examines the nature of identity, creativity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play and, above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.

 

Assistant To The Villain
Assistant To The Villain || Maehrer, Hannah Nicole

ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, level-headed assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem, terror, and other Dark Things in General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage’s employment status isn’t just important, it’s vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer-naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

But just when she’s getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat…and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain-and his entire nefarious empire-out.

Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work… and ensure he makes them pay.

After all, a good job is hard to find….

Top 15 Holiday Reads You Need NOW!

Get ready for a fantastic literary adventure this holiday season! We’ve handpicked some amazing reads that will take you on journeys with interesting characters and spellbinding stories. Whether you love stories about families, historical adventures in India, or modern tales of love and strength, our holiday reading list has it all. So, grab a cozy spot, and a warm drink, and let these Holiday Reads add a touch of magic to your holiday season!

Common yet Uncommon
Common yet Uncommon || Sudha Murty

Written in Sudha Murty’s inimitable style, Common Yet Uncommon is a heartwarming picture of everyday life and the foibles and quirks of ordinary people. In the fourteen tales that make up the collection, Sudha Murty delves into memories of childhood, life in her hometown and the people she’s crossed paths with. These and the other characters who populate the pages of this book do not possess wealth or fame. They are unpolished and outspoken, transparent and magnanimous.
Their stories are tales of unvarnished humans, with faults and big hearts.

 

Roman Stories
Roman Stories || Jhumpa Lahiri

In ‘The Boundary’, one family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker’s daughter, who nurses a wound from her family’s immigrant past. In ‘P’s Parties’, a Roman couple, now empty nesters, finds comfort and community with foreigners at their friend’s yearly birthday gathering-until the husband crosses a line.

These are splendid, searching stories, written in Jhumpa Lahiri’s adopted language of Italian and seamlessly translated by the author and by Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz.

 

Sakina's Kiss
Sakina’s Kiss || Vivek Shanbhag, Srinath Perur

Exquisitely translated from the Kannada by Srinath Perur, Sakina’s Kiss is a delicate, precise meditation on the persistence of old biases—and a rattled masculinity—in India’s changing social and political landscape. Ingeniously crafted, Vivek Shanbhag interrogates the space between truth and perception in this unforgettable foray into the minefield of family life.

 

After Messiah
After Messiah || Aakar Patel

‘Everyone bowed to the Big Man. He was glorified, deified even, with temples raised to him, as the embodiment of the nation.’

Now the Big Man is gone, with nobody named as his successor. Into this void is pushed Mira, who is reluctant at first but increasingly interested in the position she finds herself in. Will she use her authority to further her agenda, or will she hold on to her principles? Watched by her political rivals, Jayeshbhai and Swamiji, and guided by well-wishers Ayesha, Prabhu and Du Bois, she marches on and discovers something about power-and about herself.

 

Filmi Stories
Filmi Stories || Kunal Basu

The eight stories of this collection are about unforeseen terrors and adventures, surreal comedies, the apocalypses and the sublime poetry of everyday life. A disgruntled trucker sets out to kill his rival, ending up as the saviour of migrant workers trapped by a pandemic. A novice jailor breaks the law only to learn that nothing in this world is beyond pardon. A corpse dressed immaculately in a suit is discovered on a beach, the trail of the suspects stretching across continents in casinos and cruise ships. The nude paintings of a dead artist set the stage for a murder in a gallery. Hunt for a terrorist leads to a dangerous game of luring a prey out of its lair using a human bait. A man finds himself as the sole passenger of an airplane flying from one deserted airport to another. An innocent shopkeeper learns the wisdom of the Mahabharata on the verge of losing his innocence.

 

Victory City
Victory City || Salman Rushdie

In the wake of an insignificant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for the Goddess, who begins to speak out of the girl’s mouth. Granting her powers beyond Pampa Kampana’s comprehension, the goddess tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga – literally ‘victory city’ -the wonder of the world.

 

The Patient in Bed Number 12
The Patient in Bed Number 12 || Raj Kamal Jha

The Patient in Bed Number 12 is a remarkable novel framed as a confession from parent to child, from child to parent. In this profoundly moving exchange, secrets long buried tumble out, mysterious and dreamlike: a grieving mother finds solace in a newspaper photograph; a ghost comes to life in an abandoned fridge; children fill empty jars with the night’s darkness; a young couple plan how to seek permission for their love; and three men with a phone camera turn a family’s world upside down.

 

One Part Woman || Perumal Murugan
One Part Woman || Perumal Murugan

All of Kali and Ponna’s efforts to conceive a child-from prayers to penance, potions to pilgrimages-have been in vain. Despite being in a loving and sexually satisfying relationship, they are relentlessly hounded by the taunts and insinuations of the people around them. Ultimately, all their hopes and apprehensions come to converge on thechariot festival in the temple of the half-female god Ardhanareeswara and the revelry surrounding it. Everything hinges on the one night when rules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman is sanctioned. This night could end the couple’s suffering and humiliation.But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test. Acutely observed, One Part Woman lays bare with unsparing clarity a relationship caught between the dictates of social convention and the tug of personal anxieties, vividly conjuring an intimate and unsettling portrait of marriage, love and sex.

 

The Gallery
The Gallery || Manju Kapur

HE GALLERY pursues the question of what it takes for a woman to stand up for herself, through the intertwined lives of Minal and Ellora Sahni, wife and daughter of a successful New Delhi lawyer, and Maitrye and Tashi, wife
and daughter of the office peon at the Sahni law practice. In her new novel, Manju Kapur brings together themes of independence, identity and womanhood by focusing on a set of principal characters who are connected through work and physical proximity, yet separated by class and power.

 

The Girl Who Kept Falling in Love
The Girl Who Kept Falling in Love || Rheea Mukherjee

When Kaya meets and falls deeply in love with a fellow activist from the very religious community the country is actively trying to erase, her twin purposes are miraculously aligned in an intoxicating combination that she becomes immediately fearful of losing. In the midst of spirited protests and rising violence, Kaya bears witness to vast human suffering while experiencing profound joy. It is time to make a choice. Kaya knows if she chooses love this time, she will betray everything she has claimed to believe in. If she is willing to do that, can Kaya truly be loved by the person she most desires?

 

Mansions of the Moon
Mansions of the Moon || Shyam Selvadurai

Drawing on ancient records and historical sources, and weaving it with fiction and mythology, Shyam Selvadurai creates a vivid portrait of Yasodhara, a remarkable woman on a remarkable journey. Mansions of the Moon is an evocative, thought-provoking novel and a must-read for anyone interested in spirituality, mythology and the power of the human spirit.

 

The Sea Elephants
The Sea Elephants || Shastri Akella

Welcomed by other storytellers, Shagun thrives-easily embodying mortals and gods, men and women-and embraces a life on the move, far from his father’s clutches. When Shagun meets Marc, a charming photographer, he seems to have found the love he always longed for. But not even Marc can save him from his lingering shame, nor his father’s ever-present threat to send him to a conversion center. As Shagun’s past begins to engulf him once again, he must decide if he is strong enough to face what he fears most, and to boldly claim his own happiness.

Set in 1990s India, The Sea Elephants is an utterly immersive and spellbinding novel, both dark and beautiful, harrowing and triumphant. An ode to the redemptive joys of storytelling, Shastri Akella’s soulful debut is a celebration of hard-won love-of others and for ourselves.

 

Soft Animal
Soft Animal || Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

Soft Animal unfolds in urgent present tense with illuminating flashbacks, whip-smart dialogue and conspiratorial footnotes. Bringing the deftness of deadpan humour and the precision of meticulous social observation to the self-delusions of India’s privileged urban middle class, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan’s latest channels an uncomfortably-and sometimes heartbreakingly-intimate experience of millennial marriage that is seldom portrayed but all too real.

 

The Laughter
The Laughter || Sonora Jha

Sonora Jha has created a complex character both in tune and out of step with our time, an erudite man who first inspires and then challenges our sympathies. As the novel reaches its shocking conclusion, Jha compels us to re-examine scenes in a new light, revealing a depth of loneliness in unlikely places, the subjectivity of innocence, and the looming peril of white rage in America.

An explosive and tense work of fiction, The Laughter is a fascinating portrait of privilege, radicalization, class, and modern academia that forces us to confront the assumptions we make, as both readers and as citizens.

 

Fear and Lovely
Fear and Lovely || Anjana Appachana

 

Mallika is a painfully shy young woman growing up in the heart of a close-knit, sometimes stifling New Delhi colony. Though she is surrounded by love, her life is complicated by secrets that she, her mother and her aunt work hard to keep.
After suffering a trauma aged nineteen, Mallika loses three days of her memory and slowly spirals into a deep depression. She must find a way out of this abyss, back to herself and those she cares about. But she must also hide her mental illness from her community.

 

Happy Holidays!

‘Writing is almost biological’: Ashok Ferrey on writing fiction

Having lost his mother at a young age, Sanjay de Silva lives in Colombo, under the thumb of a controlling Sri Lankan father. When his father is diagnosed with cancer, he feels the ground shifting under his feet, the balance of power realigning. Though it is something he has dreamed of all his life, he is uneasy when it happens. Learning that he is entitled to live in England, thanks to his half-English mother, he moves to London.

This is the story of an Asian builder in south London. But at its heart, The Unmarriageable Man is about grief; how each of us copes in our inimitable way with the hidden mysteries of family and the loss of loved ones. Because, as Sanjay is about to find out, grief is only the transmutation of love, of the very same chemical composition – liquid, undistilled – the one inevitably turning to the other like ice to water.

Today, we have with us the author of the book, Ashok Ferrey talking about how the book was born from his own personal experience of dealing with his father’s death.

By Ashok Ferrey 

 

Recently, I said somewhere that the most difficult part of writing a book is to reach inside your soul,  extract the truth, squeeze it out, then hang it on the line to dry – for all the world to see. By this measure, my latest book, The Unmarriageable Man, was the most difficult one I ever wrote. Twenty years ago my father died – of various complications following cancer – and it was a hugely traumatic time for me. It was precisely this trauma that made me a writer: I remember taking him to the cancer hospital in a tuk-tuk, forcing a banana down his throat on the way there (bitter experience had taught me that after the chemo, he wasn’t going to be able to eat anything for the next 24 hours), and bringing him back home where he collapsed on the bed. I went into the next room, and in an exercise book lying around I wrote (with a pencil) my very first story. It took me half an hour. When I finished I remember looking around the room thinking What have I done? Oh, what have I done? It was almost as if I’d committed a murder, it was so unexpected!

front cover of The Unmarriageable Man
The Unmarriageable Man || Ashok Ferrey

 

That story, The Perfect House (in Colpetty People) remains today one of the funniest things I ever wrote. It taught me that this process of writing is almost biological – there are unseen forces inside you that begin to operate when you let yourself go. In my case, weirdly, the more stressed I am, the funnier the writing. (This is what I tell young writers who attend my workshops. Stress is Good. Generally, they look at me in dumb incomprehension. Sometimes fear. As if at this point I’ll bring out a large stick.)

Fast forward twenty years. It has taken this long for me to feel confident enough to deal with what happened back then, with my father. Fictionalising it has helped – it allows you to put a certain distance between you and your subject. So this story has been cooking in my brain all this while, which only goes to show that you can’t force your writing: it will come out when it has to; and only when it has to.

So I hope you enjoy this book. I hope it has been worth the twenty year wait.

**

 

Politics, patriarchy and parochialism-charting the course of a political destiny

Beginning at the peak of Nehruvian era and ending in the early seventies, Devesh Verma’s sharply witty saga The Politician gives an enthralling, evocative view of provincial northern India-once the political heartland of the country-and the ebb and flow of the fortunes of its protagonists.
Ram Mohan is an intrepid and ambitious young man in newly independent India, who refuses to be held down by his humble origins. Spurred on by his diehard optimism, he aims for things usually inaccessible to people of his extraction. However, he soon realizes that without political or bureaucratic power, the idea of a respectable life in India is nothing but pretense, and after a Gulab Singh rescues him from being insulted by a thug, Ram Mohan becomes persuaded of the efficacy of violence in certain situations.
Read on for a glimpse into Ram Mohan’s early days, and his initial faux pas balancing political ambition and political correctness!


The flame of political ambition kindled by Kishan Lal Tiwari was still burning bright in Ram Mohan. It was one of the reasons Ram Mohan did not want to defer his research work any further.

 

Parliamentary and Assembly elections might still be a few years away; he wanted to employ this time to achieve his scholarly objective, a feather in his cap; after which he could think of a way to assert his presence in the political arena as well. It could be either through contesting an election as suggested by Tiwari ji or through associating with the campaign of some important candidate of the Congress. But he was sure if he decided to be in the fray, it would not only be to prove his following. He would fight with a view to securing victory by convincing castes other than Kurmis of his merit. The mere thought of surprising them by his ability to quote from Sanskrit classics and Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas was uplifting.

 

He was never apolitical, but his interest in politics after meeting Tiwari ji had jumped to another level; he would make it a point now to keep abreast of all important political happenings. Just the previous year, he had taken part in a public meeting in Kanpur organized to condemn the allegations of corruption against Nehru government. It was district Congress committee’s answer to the protest rallies of the Communist Party and the People’s Union, the right-wing Hindu party; the former had a strong support base among the workers in state-owned mills of Kanpur, the latter drew its strength from the city’s Hindu shopkeepers. Given his poor grasp of the details, Ram Mohan simply lambasted the opposition, declaring that it was a sin to even insinuate that the allegations could be true; to back up his contention, he invoked the figures of Gandhi, Patel, Nehru and the like whose values were the cornerstone of the Congress. Biting at each word, Ram Mohan wondered how a respectable member of the Union cabinet chosen by Nehru ji could be accused of any financial misconduct. His speech had brought tears to the eyes of some old Congressmen.

 

Later however, the controversy had transformed into a monstrous scandal, brought to light by none other than Nehru’s estranged son-in-law, a Congress MP. He had raised the issue in Parliament. What had seemed to have transpired was that the Life Insurance Corporation of India had ploughed a huge amount of money into a private company of tenuous reputation; the shares were bought the day the stock markets were closed and at a price much above their market-value. The resulting uproar forced the government to order a judicial enquiry, which found the finance minister guilty of making the fraudulent investment. He had no option but to resign. It was the first big instance of government corruption coming to surface in independent India, which shocked Ram Mohan into making a fetish of financial honesty and pouring scorn on people suspected of bribery. Before Ram Mohan could plunge into research on the poetsaint, there had been a couple of more Congress-related events to engage him.

 

Soon after the scandal, Nehru dropped the bomb of his reluctance to continue as PM, arguing the position demanded ceaseless work, leaving him with no time ‘for quiet thinking’. The Congress was thrown into turmoil. Congressmen across the country were falling over themselves to issue appeals to the party to pay no heed to the hideous idea. When local congress leaders in Kanpur met to pass a resolution against Pandit ji’s ‘request’, Ram Mohan committed a political faux pas by suggesting— to the extreme embarrassment of all the office bearers in the committee—that the resolution should also urge Nehru ji to identify and nurture an alternative leadership before he could think of quitting. Ram Mohan had to be shouted down by all those present. ‘We’re shocked and disgusted at this temerity,’ bellowed a committee member. Anyway, the crisis blew over shortly as Nehru quit the idea of quitting by bowing down to the party’s wish.

The Politician Front Cover
The Politician || Devesh Verma

 

Crime, corruption, and the freedom to dream

Megha Majumdar’s electrifying debut novel, A Burning, is about the cost and freedom of dreams in a world burdened with class and socio-political power-structures.

She traces the lives of three protagonists Jivan, Lovely and PT Sir – which get entangled after a terrorist attack on a train in Kolkata. The responsibilities for both Jivan’s false charges and her freedom lie in the hands of PT Sir and Lovely – who too are battling with the daily indignities of their life.

With entrenched injustices, fascism, politics of religion, and betrayals coming into play – these characters become reflective of daily human struggles in a country spinning towards extremism.

*

 

Jivan

 

‘If the police didn’t help ordinary people like you and me, if the police watched them die, doesn’t that mean that the government is also a terrorist?’

Jivan is a Muslim girl living in a slum in Kolkata. She witnesses the aftermath and carnage of a terrorist attack on a train and reshares a video on Facebook with the caption given above. Days later she is arrested for the attack and thrown into prison undoing tears of work she has spent clawing her way out of poverty.

 

 

PT Sir

 

‘PT Sir knows who she is. Isn’t she the ghost who begs him for mercy? Isn’t she the ghost who searches the gaze of her teacher, hoping that he might offer rescue? Maybe that is why they had the white curtain up at the court— not so that Jivan could not influence his testimony, but so that he would not have to face her.’

A gym coach, PT Sir is Jivan’s former physical education teacher who turns against out of his thirst for recognition. He embraces a political career, getting entangled in extremist politics, inextricably connecting his political rise with Jivan’s fall.

 

 

Lovely

 

‘Uff! Don’t make me say it, Lovely. I can’t do this marriage scene with a half man.’

Lovely is a transgender woman from the same slum as Jivan – who dreams of making it big in Bollywood and attends a local acting class. She faces day-to-day ignominies because of her gender-identity. She has a husband named Azad. Lovely has an alibi that can prove Jivan’s innocence – but it would cost Lovely everything she holds dear.

*

 

A Burning|| Megha Majumdar

 

Jivan, Lovely and PT Sir present to us an unforgettable character-arc that explores the complexities of possessing morals in today’s world. As each of them face profound obstacles and inequalities, Majumdar gives us one searing question to explore through them: Who is allowed to dream?

Midnight Misgivings

A Burning by Megha Majumdar is an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies.

One is Jivan, a Muslim girl from the slums accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. The second is PT Sir, an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, only to find his own ascent linked to Jivan’s fall. And the third is Lovely, an irresistible outcast who has an alibi that can set Jivan free-but at the cost of everything she holds dear.

The excerpt below marks the starting moment of the adversity Jivan will face, as well as, the beginning of understanding lovely’s life.

 

Jivan

A hand reached out of the dark and dragged me up in my nightie. I screamed and fought, believing it was a man come to do what men do. But it was a policewoman.

My father, on the floor his throat dry and his painful back rigid, mewled. Nighttime turned him into a child.

Then I was in the back of a police van, watching through the wire mesh a view of roads glowing orange under streetlamps. I exhausted myself appealing to the policewoman sitting in front of me: “Sister, what is happening? I am a working girl. I work at Pantaloons. I have nothing to do with the police!”

They said nothing. Now and then a crackle came from the radio on the dashboard, far in front. At some point, a car filled with boys sped by, and I heard whooping and cheering. They were coming from a nightclub. The doddering police van meant nothing to these boys. They did not slow down. They were not afraid. Their fathers knew police commissioners and members of the legislature, figures who were capable of making all problems disappear. And me, how would I get out of this? Whom did I know?

 

A Burning || Megha Majumdar

Lovely

At night, after the acting class, I am lying in bed with Azad, my husband, my businessman who is buying and reselling Sansung electronics and Tony Hilfiger wristwatches from Chinese ships docking on Diamond Harbor. I am showing him my practice video from the day’s class, and now he is saying, “I have been telling you for hundred years! You have star material in you!” He is pinching my cheek, and I am laughing even though it is hurting. I am feeling peaceful, like this thin mattress on the floor is our own luxury five-star hotel bed. In this room I am having everything I am needing. A jar of drinking water, some dishes, a small kerosene stove, and a shelf of my clothes and jewelry. On the wall, giving me their blessings everyday, are Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan. When I am looking around, I am seeing their beautiful faces, and some of their good fortune is sprinkling down on me.

“Azad,” I am saying this night. My face is close to his face, like we are in a romantic scene in a blockbuster. “Promise you will not get angry if I am telling you something?”

I am taking a moment to look at his face, dark and gray. Some long hairs in his eyebrows are trying to make an escape. I am having difficulty looking eye to eye for these hard words.

“Aren’t you thinking,” I am saying finally, “about a family and all? We are not so young–”

Azad is starting to talk over me like always. “Again?” is he saying. I am knowing that he is annoyed. “Was my brother coming here?”
“No!”

“Was my brother putting this rubbish in your head?”

“No, I am telling you!”

Why Azad is always accusing me of such things?

**

A Burning has been so masterfully compressed that it can be read in a single sitting to reveal how Jivan deals with the mounts of challenges coming her way. Continue to see how two other integral characters – PT Sir and Lovely – weave their way into the heart of the story in an unprecedented, yet vital manner that will leave you wanting more.

 

 

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