Milan reflects on the inevitability of such a decline: “Too many stories never left this place, got buried under layers of dust and the death of memory. There were always the journeys in crowded buses, hours with students who never cared, tea in the morning and the afternoon in tiny earthen cups at roadside stalls, weary chat with the regulars, the coldness of bureaucracy, more tea, a cigarette or two, breathlessness, a dull ache in the chest. A voice unheeded, uncared for…”

Majumdar’s skilful, evocative descriptions, from little details like Thin Arrowroot biscuits and Santiniketan bags to the crawling traffic and workaday commutes on the streets, bring the city to life. The most powerful descriptions — which offer the sharpest commentary on our cities today, where so much is changing and so much else is still the same — are of the terrifying claustrophobia of the government offices where the clerks wait indifferently behind dusty heaps of files. Milan waits patiently, at No. 5645, holding the application form in his hand until he hears the amount it will take to clear his pension case: Rs 6,000 in ready cash, wrapped in brown paper, tied in strings. And then he drops the form that he has just filled up, because it doesn’t matter anyway — he’ll never have that kind of money to offer. He realises how useless all his pleas have been: “Forms, facts, words, none read, none given a nook on desks, in files.”
Silverfish is a moving debut from a talented new voice.