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Book : Dead Meat
Author : Ankush Saikia
Publisher : Penguin
Pages : 416
Price : Rs 399
Early on, in Dead Meat, the main character, Arjun Arora, comes across a runaway couple whom he’s been instructed to find. Being a typical paperback hero, he takes pity on the hapless pair and allows the boy to run away instead of being killed by the girl’s irate father, brother and assorted company. To cut the tension, perhaps, Arora asks the girl what her beau had been cooking before he came raining in on their parade. “‘Paneer,’ she said and started weeping again.” This is about as poignant as the book gets.
The writing is as pedestrian as the streets of Delhi of which the author is so cynical about. Arora can barely cross a road in the capital without seemingly being assailed by all manner of stenches or tripping over an open sewer. And, of course, he’s frequently stuck in traffic. His apathy for Delhi and her denizens aside, he still manages to create a somewhat compelling character in Arora, and his corrupt businessman/ shady politician friend, who is naturally called Bunty (shudder) and lives in Lajpat Nagar with his joint family. The plot lines are a bit blurred and the pace is plodding, but Dead Meat still manages to remain readable, largely thanks to Arora’s characterisation and Saikia’s observations on the class disparities that plague the country. Perhaps, you can peruse it while stuck in traffic too.