Delhi Noir

Doesnt he read a lot like Naipaul? asked a colleague as she leafed through a copy of Aatish Taseers debut novel,The Temple Goers,at the Oxford Bookstore last Wednesday.

Doesnt he read a lot like Naipaul? asked a colleague as she leafed through a copy of Aatish Taseers debut novel,The Temple Goers,at the Oxford Bookstore last Wednesday. A few minutes later,as Taseer read out passages after passages from his book at the launch ceremony in a wise old mans voice,words strung together in precision paid homage to Taseers most obvious literary influence,VS Naipaul.

And as he narrated a part of his novel (a typical party scene in upmarket Delhi),Naipaul himself leapt out of the pages as an intriguing character referred to as the Writer. The Writer in Taseers book is the visionary who almost predicts the lead protagonists brush with fate. Much like Naipaul,he is astute and is dismissive about the concept of India as a democracy. As the party scene is played out in the living room of a posh Delhi household,we indulge in a game of identify-the-Delhi-celebrity. Isnt the somewhat loud,chief minister who also happens to be a royalty of Jhaatkebaal (an imaginary state) modeled on a certain CM of a princely state? Isnt the mother of the protagonist modeled on Taseers mother (journalist Tavleen Singh)?

The book is disguised as an autobiography,but actually things are more complex than that. It starts off as an autobiography but then the story takes its own course, says Taseer,who had earlier penned the critically acclaimed non-fiction work Stranger to History (2009) and the translation Manto: Selected Stories (2008).

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This book is about a young writer who returns to Delhi while struggling to finish his first book. In Delhi he meets a young gym trainer and is fascinated by him. His friendship with the young man takes him to the darker side of his own city,away from the plush drawing rooms and vacous dinner conversations. The gym trainer,Akash,stands for a new kind of India. He is an embodiment of the hunger and the contentment that are part of our reality today, says Taseer.

Taseers exploration of the Capitals underbelly is much in keeping with an emerging trend of books on darker sides of Indian metros (The White Tiger,Eunuch Park). Why this preoccupation? Probably because we are in that stage of history where we can afford to ask such questions. Cities like Delhi are sights of enormous contrast.One needs to understand this chasm, he sums up.

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Delhi Noir

Doesnt he read a lot like Naipaul? asked a colleague as she leafed through a copy of Aatish Taseers debut novel,The Temple Goers,at the Oxford Bookstore last Wednesday.

Doesnt he read a lot like Naipaul? asked a colleague as she leafed through a copy of Aatish Taseers debut novel,The Temple Goers,at the Oxford Bookstore last Wednesday.