Author: Shamini Flint
Pages: 320
Publisher: Piatkus
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐
The cover page of the book quotes a review by the Daily Record describing it in these words: “as compelling as McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe. High praise indeed and completely unfitting, it turned out, once I began reading.
The book tries to be more than a murder mystery so
there are a lot of cultural references and talk about India from the eyes of
Inspector Singh, a citizen of Singapore, with no particular feeling for the
land of his ancestors.
In particular, the observations around Mumbai are
so prejudiced that they aren’t cool at all.
Forced to go on medical leave after his last case,
Inspector Singh of the Singapore Police is roped into flying to India to attend
the wedding of Ashu, the daughter of his wife’s cousin.
When Ashu disappears a few days before her wedding,
her wealthy paternal grandfather, Tara Singh, wants no scandal and tasks
Inspector Singh to bring his grand daughter home.
The investigation becomes a case of murder when a
charred body wearing Ashu’s favourite earrings is found. But Mrs Singh is
adamant that her family must not be found at fault.
Earlier on, in the Prologue, we come to know of the
aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her
Sikh bodyguards in 1984, the riots that broke out, and the loss of life and
property.
The book cover is a mishmash of random images associated
with India that have no bearing upon the story.
The story is written in the 3rd person past tense limited PoV of multiple characters.
Much of the author’s
basic understanding is faulty. Inspector Singh is more Singaporean than Indian,
and yet he is crazy about cricket, and follows the Mumbai Indians, of all
things.
Ashu and her
brothers call their parents Mata and Pita, which is odd, because these words
are basically Hindi for mother and father. But they are not a form of address
at all. The right way to address parents in Hindi would be Mataji and Pitaji.
The Indian mobile
number of Inspector Singh is offered to the assistant commissioner of Police Patel, without letting us readers
know that he had got one.
The slumkids refer
to Ashu as Doctor Amma (mother), when Doctor Didi (sister) would have been more
apt, given her age.
The reference to
Immaculate Conception, when referring to the pregnancy of the dead girl, is in
extreme bad taste.
Mumbai Police, a
formidable force, are shown here as lazy nincompoops who have no problem with
taking directions from Inspector Singh. It is odd that ACP Patel is shown to speak grammatically imperfect English, eschewing
articles, while Mahesh, a runaway child who lives in a slum and is illiterate,
speaks perfect English. Inspector Singh finds no fault with Mahesh's language skills.
Incidentally,
faulty English seems to be the author’s forte.
At one point Inspector
Singh reads a news item regarding the judgement on the demolition of the Babri
Masjid. He observes, reading the errant paragraph aloud, that there are no
prepositions in it, when it is the articles that are missing. And that seems to
be the author’s problem. Mrs Singh speaks
incorrect English. Satisfying the author’s strange ideas of our language
skills, she too avoids using articles while speaking.
This book
deliberately reduces India to its stereotypes, the very thing that a good
writer does not do. The author of this book tells us a bunch of crap, and tries
to pass it off as the truth about India. According to the author, suits with
Nehru collars are preferred by Indian businessmen. Most people are constantly
chewing tobacco.
Inspector Singh is
worried about the origins of the dust on his shirt in a country where millions
don’t have access to toilets.
Here is a ridiculous
and highly sexist quote that shows this author knows nothing about India. The
dislike of most Indians for natural light was a curious feature of the race.
Perhaps they feared a darkening of their not-so-lily-white skin?
Clearly, the author has a chip on her shoulder regarding skin colour.
The author also
observes that households in Mumbai depend on tankers for water, and that families
have to fetch buckets of water up in the lift.
The boss at the
chemical works where Ashu worked is an American who calls Mumbai a hellhole.
Another example of the author’s lack of research and imperceptiveness. This
country, this city grow on you.
Every place on
earth, every country in the world has its pretty and unsavoury sides. This
author has focused only on the worst side of India.
I give her one star because giving less than one is not an option.
No comments:
Post a Comment