Paradise Lust

Pages: 358

If I was Goa’s minister of tourism,I would dispatch my minions to every bookstore in the state to buy up all copies of Kishwar Desai’s new book. It would add considerably to her royalties but at least it would not dent the annual influx of tourists to the state,scared off by the portrait of Goa she presents. It is ironic that she focuses on the state’s underbelly in the latest edition of her extended literary crusade,artfully clothed as fiction. She and her husband,Lord Meghnad Desai,have a house in Goa,which makes her an honorary Goan. That also proves hugely useful in the writing of this book,the third in a trilogy of crime novels involving the spunky heroine,Simran Singh.

From the beach life to its famous shacks,the hippies and the hustlers,the smarmy politicians and the dope dealers,and,of course,the foreigners,including vulnerable young girls seduced by the drug-hazed sea-and-susegad (laidback) lifestyle,Desai captures it all with enviable authenticity. Yet,these are also elements that constitute every cliché about Goa. They exist at some level but in this book,there’s anything but innocence to see. The author uses the fictional plot to make a larger point but ends up turning Goa into a hotbed of sex and sleaze,or,more accurately,sex,lies and videotapes.

It is becoming difficult to separate Desai the author,from Desai the feminist/activist. Her first book,Witness the Night,was on female foeticide while her second,Origins of Love,looked at surrogacy and adoption. Her latest is influenced by the Delhi gang rape last December and its aftermath. At the official book launch,the obligatory debate was about crimes against women,social fault lines and possible antidotes,and little about the book. Being an author of popular fiction and an avowed feminist is a fine line to walk in literary terms and to her credit,Desai manages this with considerable dexterity.

In the process,she has created a believable character in Simran Singh,the social worker who also investigates crimes. She drinks,she smokes,swears a lot and gets into bed with men she can relate to. She is,also,good at snooping. The novel is set over a few weeks in December,2012,when the country was up in arms over the Delhi gang rape. December is also peak tourist season in Goa and Simran is there with her adopted daughter on holiday. The mystery begins with the arrival of her former boyfriend,Amarjit,a cop,who sends her an MMS showing a blonde haired girl being harassed by two local males. Desai uses the sensational Scarlett Keeling case — the British teenager who was raped and murdered on a Goa beach in 2008 — to replicate a similar crime. In the book,she is Liza Kay,a 16-year-old British girl who has gone missing,which gets Simran involved in the case.

It makes for a sordid narrative involving shady politicians,a ruthless drug mafia,foreign girls lost in a haze of dope and sexual exploitation and lots of dubious characters. The villain of the piece is,predictably,a politician from Delhi who belongs to a party that is keeping an unstable coalition government in power.

All Desai’s books have that contemporary feel. What we get then is a mystery wrapped in riddles — Amarjit himself appears and disappears without the reader quite figuring out his motive or the relationship. Even the series of video clips sent to Simran’s phone is from an unknown messenger but they also show that Kay had been abused by a rotating cast of culprits. Folded into the narrative are issues of female sexuality and exploitation but cleverly disguised so as not to take away from the developing plot. There are,however,parts that drag and Simran herself is a bit of a stretch with her middle aged sexuality — she finds a local ally and part-time lover to help her unravel the case — and her habit of rushing where angels fear to tread. For all that,Desai has a keen eye for detail and the ability to maintain suspense. The writing flows easily and,shorn of its feminist trappings,is actually,a highly enjoyable book to read while lying on a beach in Goa.