The reading

That is Bijoy on the left, reading, while I try to look as composed as I can!!!
Pic: Kevin Antao

I could hear my voice shake as soon as I switched on the mike for the reading of City of Fear on Sunday April 22, at Crossword, Mithakhali. I knew exactly how I wanted to introduce the book. I had rehearsed it a thousand times in my head. And yet, my voice was shaking as if I had not rehearsed at all. I felt as if someone was putting a lid on my voice and I had to fight him away so that I am heard. I had to be heard. I had dreamt of this moment so many times that none of my many invisible demons were going to shut out my voice now.
Fortunately I managed to fight of the demons, thanks also to Bijoy Shivram, a friend who agreed to read portions of the book for me. My demons can try to shut out my voice, but they can have no effect on Bijoy!
I started by telling the audience that I was majorly offended by a scene in Aparna Sen's movie Mr and Mrs Iyer. There is this part where rioters enter a bus scouting for Muslims to kill and randomly pull down pants of passengers to check if they are circumcised. One man gives away the identity of an old Muslim couple because he was Jewish, circumcised and there was no way in hell that he would have been able to explain to the rioters that he was not Muslim. This was his way of distracting them away from him. If I was in his place, I don't think I would have given away the identity of the old couple, I told the audience. And that I had been put in the same situation in 2002.
Bijoy went on to read some rather sensitive parts of the book, including the part in which I have a conversation with a friend and lose my top after uses the term 'circumcision' as an insult, while referring to Muslims.
The packed audience listened silently as we ended with the part where a woman was stripped and murdered close to home on March 24, 2002. And I am still wondering why no one wanted to ask questions at the end of it all...