Bleached House Cat

The tone of the writing is breezy-absurd, which means we can’t hold the writer accountable for anything that happens in the book. Two-foot-long geckos and corpses whose toes send messages from beyond the pyre? No problem. After all, compared to the real-life absurdities of Indian life, where public buses routinely mow down pedestrians on the roads of the capital city and ordinary citizens murder their daughters-in-law on a daily basis, the events in the book are entirely commonplace.

The author’s target is the cruelly insensitive landlord class, so we can relax in the knowledge that he’s a Pureheart, battling for the downtrodden and the underprivileged. Too bad they won’t be the ones reading or even buying this attractive-looking hardcover book! At nearly Rs 400, it is accessible only to that vile class which will no doubt enjoy recognising itself as the villain of the piece. That’s just another part of the all-pervasive absurdity—attackers and defenders have no choice but to sit at the same table, snarling over which of them has the greater right to capitalise upon the suffering of the mute and toiling masses.

The book takes the form of a letter addressed to His Excellency Wen Jiabao, premier of China, during this dignitary’s state visit to India. Balram has decided that the future "lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage, and drug abuse". Why does the protagonist choose the Chinese premier as the recipient of this letter? He tells us that it’s because "Only three nations have never let themselves be ruled by foreigners: China, Afghanistan and Abyssinia. These are the only three nations I admire." This statement may seem at odds with the reference to the "erstwhile master" that occurs on the same page, but so what? There’s no accountability in the breezy-absurd school of literature! Everything goes! Nothing is real! Lie back and open wide.

The letter, which extends the full length of the book, is written across seven days and nights during which time Balram sets down the story of his life, beginning with his early struggles as the son of a halwai-turned-rickshawpuller in a rural backwater called Laxmangarh. Four bestial landlords oppress the villagers of this All-India-garh. Young Balram faces the routine humiliations of his class before beginning his evolution out of the primordial slime by becoming a driver. His employer Ashok happens to be the son of one of the Laxmangarh landlords. Ashok’s wife is a trouser-wearing, badminton-playing superbitch by the name of—can you guess?—Pinky. Her dogs, Cuddles and Puddles, are white Pomeranians. The car is a Honda City. And the murder weapon, when it comes time for Balram to take the quantum-leap from slave-class to entrepreneur, is a broken whiskey bottle-neck.

Echoes of the Indo-Internationalist club of literature can be heard throughout. I discerned traces of Kiran Nagarkar’s Ravan & Eddie in the compassion for the underdog, I. Allan Sealy in the irony, Salman Rushdie in the surreal flourishes. But the composite result has none of the genius of these authors, neither the complexity of plot, nor the brilliant command of language, nor the depth of vision. Yes, the India Shining image that so many of us find nauseating in its dishonesty and complacency deserves to be reviled. But is this schoolboyish sneering the best that we can do? Is it enough to paint an ugly picture and then suggest that the way out is to slit the oppressor’s throat and become an oppressor oneself? Would the mute and toiling masses be grateful to be championed thus? I don’t think so but then again, who am I? Just another Devil’s spawn landlord-wannabe, right? So go on: read the book. You decide.