Mirror to a hellfire

This debut novel that is garnering much global praise is a scalding tale of ordinary people caught up in the politics of the world’s largest democracy.

It is easy to be vicious and difficult to be virtuous in today’s world, especially when many of the social structures that connect and sustain us enable exploitation and dis-incentivise justice.

Rarely is virtue encouraged when subjugation and subversion has gained currency in a politically vitiated environment. A Burning is borne out of such contemporary realities, where freedom has a price that a majority is not willing to pay for. And those who eventually pay, do so by putting their life at stake. Jivan, (besides being an unlikely name for a muslim woman), captures the collective amnesia of a tumultuous society in which life oscillates between personal aspirations and political ambitions.

Written with empathy and concern, this debut novel by Megha Majumdar, a native Bengali who moved to New York, creates an imagery of urban reality with its embedded fears and hopes. Jivan’s agitated mind cannot forego the horror of witnessing around a hundred people charred to death inside a firebombed train at a station, which reflects in her Facebook outburst: ‘If the police watched them die, doesn’t that mean that the government is also a terrorist?’

Little does she realise that her innocuous post would be her undoing, shattering all the starry dreams she dreams, despite the ‘burden’ of ailing parents. Forced to sign a confession statement of abetment in the terrorist act, her future lies doomed in prison while her impoverished life is just another fodder for the frenzied media to cook stories of plotting against the state. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Emerging volatility

Recent political churnings do lend familiarity to the story, but the narrative draws two related characters whose compelling presence do not raise hope for the lead protagonist, but provide interconnectedness to the vulnerabilities that afflicts them. While PT Sir, the physical education teacher knew Jivan as an avid sportsperson who could do no wrong, the transgender Lovely who took language tuition from Jivan, knew she was carrying books and not bombs on that fateful day.

Majumdar allows her characters to assess the depth of their friendship against the emerging volatility in developing their own narratives as both nurture personal dreams and ambitions. After all, there are brutally honest moments in everybody’s life when the subjectivity of desire and longing overweighs ideal societal concerns. Can you blame anyone from wanting, so much, to be not even rich, but just middle class?

A Burning is a sympathetic reflection on the lives of ordinary people in the world’s largest democracy, where self-justification has legitimised the status quo of existence. No wonder, therefore, many things continue to happen in ordinary lives for no reason at all. ‘People are no more than lizards whose tails are being pulled.’ It goes without saying that the poor are at the receiving end of gross systemic malaise triggered by a cocktail of all-pervasive religious fanaticism, rampant corruption, sustained ignorance and a compliant media. The abuse of power by influence-peddling opportunists’ pushes a vast majority to the margins.

Media frenzy

Majumdar’s impressionistic young mind captures the undercurrents of sustained exploitation of the poor, but offers little by way of salvaging such lives. The narrative highlights natural weaknesses of its characters, who lack courage to defend truth and end up being part of the media frenzy that guns for the blood of an innocent.

Is it a reflection on the emerging culture of our times or an indictment of the dominant political discourse that has polarised the society?

The writer leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions as the fast-paced narrative falls short of offering any political corrective to the rampant dumbing down of the public mindscape. Victim of their own circumstances and vulnerabilities, none of the characters stand up to get counted. What is disturbing is the bluntness with which they make choices, representing freedom in pursuing opportunities for serving their interests.

The novel’s much-hyped release notwithstanding, A Burning falls short of expectations. It misses out on an element of suspense to be a thriller; and falls short of strong imagination to sustain curiosity. However, it scores in detailing street life within which its leading characters justify their existence and their predicaments. Their fated actions don’t evoke strong feelings though, and instead, expose their meekness. And meek characters do not necessarily make for an inspiring narrative.

The novel offers a measured assessment of expansion of a political ideology that is both horrifying and devastating. Such ideologies leave little in the hands of people, thus preventing them from making informed choices and enforces decisions on them, whether they realise it or not. The interplay of circumstance and choice under such conditions is but a vicious trap of vulnerability from which the characters can hardly escape.