Preeta Chag

Pub by: Penguin Random House India Pvt Ltd

This is a story set in near future Kolkata, setting off a debate about the climate crisis, moral dilemmas, social inequality and the desperation of future times ahead.

Set over just a week in the city of Kolkata, overwhelmed with flooding and famine, the story draws a horrifying picture of a futuristic city steeped in food shortages and agonised souls.

To escape this bleak and painful existence, Ma, her two-year old daughter and her elderly father plan to fly out to be with her husband in Michigan, USA. But then the plot twists. Their passports are stolen by Boomba, a village migrant desperately seeking  better means, so that he can call his family to lead a better life in the city.

And thus, begins the frantic search for the thief and the passport. Ma has given up her job as a manager of a shelter from which she is secretly pilfering food and money, with the only aim of keeping her daughter and father alive, and not fall prey to the desperate pangs of hunger.

So, who is pardonable for their theft? Boomba, who is frantically searching for shelter and food for his parents and younger brother Robi, or Ma, who committed the act of thieving from the trust reposed in her position to save her father and her daughter.

The books also feature a millionaire’s feast for the homeless and hungry and brings in the sad, bitter truth of inequality.

The final gaping moment comes at the end. In their battle to outdo each other, Ma wants the passports to secure passage to certainty, and Boomba is trying to usurp a shelter for his desolate and hungry parents. The final moments come as a shocking climax, completely taking the reader by surprise.

When I picked up this book, which has been so acclaimed, my expectations were sky-high. Yes, the book has raised important concerns and moral ambiguities. Yet somehow, I failed to connect emotionally with the characters. I felt the book flew through quickly, and so many questions remain unanswered. Why did Ma never confide in her husband? About her father’s death or their inability to board the flight? So strange.

Megha Majumdar written words are enchanting in their use of trying to describe a moment or a thought.

“The depth of night always felt adjacent to real life, a fourth dimension of the world that allowed the honesty and courage that daylight forbade.”

“In Ma’s body, air forgot to travel its routine paths, blood resisted its own currents.”

“He alone lived in this new version of the city, its eyes now open and glowing, its teeth bared at him.”

Beautiful words, lovely story, a complex web of deceit woven on the panorama of humanity and morality. But yet…..