How does a mad family remain sane when it is surrounded by madness? What are the mad things it does to remain sane when Hindus and Muslims collide with each other in one of the worst communal riots in India’s recent history? I can't claim to have found all the answers, but I can tell you that we survived. A little scarred perhaps, but alive. That is the City of Fear in less than 100 words.
City of Fear tries to document the unique emotional landscape of those very turbulent times – How family members responded to each other while houses collapsed around them and the Godhra riots turned many streets of Ahmedabad into battlefields… How friends respond to each other, especially those with whom you had ideological differences… How strangers and acquaintances respond…
Because it all changed during those two years.
Friends whose strong Hindutva leanings you laughed off earlier, now stare at you in the face like an angry monster. You wonder how you can be friends with a monster. Acquaintances, who could not have cared less about your religion, now wonder whether Jews are closer to Muslims or Christians. And, for the first time, you are afraid to tell them that you have a lot in common with Muslims.
Primarily, City of Fear is the story of how mother and I decided to leave our home of more than 20 years because we lived in an area where Hindus and Muslims live very close to each other; where mobs clash with each other almost every day. Tired of living in a locality that is constantly on the edge, we decided to move to an apartment in a locality that has no violence.
As we began discarding many of the objects collected in our large bungalow over the years, the past suddenly jumped out at us. Through objects lying concealed in different corners of the house we had to face up to old girlfriends, dead relatives and unfulfilled desires in love letters, drawings, guitar strings, and tuning forks.
City of Fear tries to document the unique emotional landscape of those very turbulent times – How family members responded to each other while houses collapsed around them and the Godhra riots turned many streets of Ahmedabad into battlefields… How friends respond to each other, especially those with whom you had ideological differences… How strangers and acquaintances respond…
Because it all changed during those two years.
Friends whose strong Hindutva leanings you laughed off earlier, now stare at you in the face like an angry monster. You wonder how you can be friends with a monster. Acquaintances, who could not have cared less about your religion, now wonder whether Jews are closer to Muslims or Christians. And, for the first time, you are afraid to tell them that you have a lot in common with Muslims.
Primarily, City of Fear is the story of how mother and I decided to leave our home of more than 20 years because we lived in an area where Hindus and Muslims live very close to each other; where mobs clash with each other almost every day. Tired of living in a locality that is constantly on the edge, we decided to move to an apartment in a locality that has no violence.
As we began discarding many of the objects collected in our large bungalow over the years, the past suddenly jumped out at us. Through objects lying concealed in different corners of the house we had to face up to old girlfriends, dead relatives and unfulfilled desires in love letters, drawings, guitar strings, and tuning forks.
CHECK OUT CITY OF FEAR AT PENGUIN.
7 comments:
Its only those who have seen it knows it better. I dreamt of cops lobbing teargas shells last month only..and when I woke up the first thought came in my mind was what wuold be the state of mind of those who lost their loved ones. Be it earthquake or post godhra riots...
I never felt emotionally so weak when i realised my muslim friend is picked up by police for no reason actually! Your work would give expression to something we all have seen it and faced it...good job done
Looking at it as literary work,
what appealed to me was the way the style blends with the content.
City of fear scores at two levels; its arresting style and the writer’s story telling ability. The clipped-sentence technique works very well here and well-described passages make for good visualization. Though the wordplay and the imagery, at times, do hint at over-indulgence, the abstract and the real have been interspersed to good effect.
But most importantly, it holds the reader’s attention till the end and allows you to savour the experience, much after the last page has been turned.
Hi robIN,
IN coz' you moved in as our neighbour when religions were made to collide with each other by people & concrete structures collided on their own. It was indeed a time of madness and who would know better than you. I am yet to go through the book but knowing you, I hope (I'm rather sure) that by the time one finishes reading the 'City of Fear' there is a whole new City of Hope developed within us.
I am confident that your investment of midnight oil, thoughts, feelings & emotions made in creating this book will achieve its purpose.
God Bless !
boss, WHERE is the second post??? u gotta keep them comin', dude!
Flouting the predictable, the novel comes to you in various strands you could pick up for choice.
Extremely poetic in its imagery, description of lights and shadows, bird sounds, pets, familial objects, memorabilia. Philosphical through the poetics with a dash of self depreciating humour. Real for its portrayal of the riots when an
indulgent inner world gives way to a pulsating outer. The reader is led into a labyrinth of poetics, philosphy, gruesome reality and the double realisation and the added pain in being singled at a minority member.
There are islands of poems within the narrative, there is drama in in terms of the rape and the gruesome murder and the form chosen is a novel. An essential novel since it has all the elements of poetry,drama and fiction, the book is a great read. First for its story and several times later for its poignant imagery.
I am a man: little do I last
and the night is enormous.
But I look up:
the stars write.
Unknowing I understand:
I too am written,
and at this very moment
someone spells me out.
Well written article.
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