However disarmingly displayed, the author and the protagonist's political naivete are embarrassing.
This, then, is the Sahmat school of fiction—shrill, posters with slogans that translate the ’60s flower rhetoric into chi-chi Hindi, candlelight vigils, some slumming and then a hot shower with Bodyshop gel in mamma’s bathroom! However disarmingly displayed, the author and the protagonist’s political naivete are embarrassing. Violent encounters change Pervez’s life forever—a riot in Dharavi, a visit to the emergency ward. One has her cowering under a quilt, the other fainting. Pervez finally takes courage and performs the ultimate act of defiance, after the police rough her up. Promise not to laugh, and I’ll tell you: she spits into a gutter!