Scan barcode
berylbird's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Ajay is born into poverty, a Dalit or untouchable. His parents scavenge and live on a knife’s edge of existence. When their goat gets loose and eats the neighbor’s spinach, it will lead to unthinkable consequences, one of which results in Ajay being taken into captivity and carried far away from the place he knew as home in Uttar Pradesh. In a cage with other boys, the totality of this experience becomes like a blanket of horror that informs the person that eight-year-old Ajay will become. Thankfully, he ends up with people that treat him well as far as feeding him and not abusing him, but they expect a man’s work from him. Here, he learns to associate happiness with pleasing others. These feelings of pleasing others Ajay conjoins with feelings of security and protection, forming one of the major themes of the book, vulnerability versus invincibility. This theme will at times overlap with the theme of action and power versus passivity.
When Ajay is a teenager, he meets Sunny Wadia, the charismatically handsome playboy heir to his father’s gangster throne. At that time, Ajay is working in a cafe, where Sunny hangs out with a group of friends (those in thrall of Sunny’s money and influence). Ajay waits on Sunny hand and foot. Ajay is content to work like this, but a girl in the group calls him, “puppy.” Sunny is impressed enough with Ajay to offer him work in Delhi. In Delhi, Ajay becomes Sunny’s most loyal servant, “his driver, his butler, his everything… Ajay is the beating heart of Sunny’s world. Wordless, faceless, content.” Eli, a young man trained in the Israeli Defence Forces teaches Ajay the Israeli martial arts known as Krav Maga. While Ajay becomes capable, Eli tells him that he lacks the spark of violence that is needed to become fully fluent in the art.
In Delhi, Ajay becomes aware of the abject poverty of his birth. When Sunny meets Neda, a young woman from an intellectual family, Ajay sees how close they become. For the first time in his life, Ajay becomes aware of his own brokenness; he realizes that it’s possible he will never be able to become intimate with another person in the same way. This awareness in Ajay, I see as character growth. At the same time, Ajay is also afflicted with the blindness of an illusory fantasy world. He begins to think of returning home to Uttar Pradesh (UP) as a big man in his safari suit, a man of means and success with enough money to elevate his poverty-stricken family. “I am returning as a big man, a man of means, a success. Even as he imagines this homecoming, a dark part of him knows it is a lie.” The second major theme is awareness versus blindness, at times a willful blindness and at times, just a pitch dark unknowing. These are conflicts along with trying to form a sense of identity that swirl at the heart of the novel. Who is Ajay? He is becoming known as a Wadia man. Sunny even calls Ajay his brother. When Sunny learns that Ajay is from UP, he says, “we spring from the same soil.”
Sunny Wadia is also conflicted about his evolving sense of identity. He understands much of where his father’s wealth has come from yet toys with his own fantasies of building a major city along the Yamuna River in Delhi. He makes himself willfully blind as to how the flooding of Yamuna makes this impossible and regards the relocation of the slum residents as easily managed. He imagines himself as a patron of the arts and a do-gooder but as the novel progresses it becomes easier and easier to see how difficult it will be for Sunny to access his father’s wealth and remain this good person of his fantasy. Sunny is becoming complicit with his father’s actions by flying in exotic foods at exorbitant prices to his extravagant parties while indulging in drugs and alcohol, even as he continues to spin his dreams.
The social conscience of the novel is Dean Saldanha, a journalist at The Post. He sees the poor people of Delhi and writes about them and their living conditions in the slums and illegal settlements along the Yamuna River and in other places in Delhi. “He wanted to paint this shifting, unstable city in words, wanted to immortalize the daily struggles of its citizens.” Dean is a secondary character, but we learn more about Neda, his assistant, who often shares a byline with him, in how she compares herself to him.
“All Neda’s life, this was a part of Delhi that she saw and didn’t see. The slums had always been there; every time she crossed the river she looked down on the ramshackle city clinging to the banks. They were inevitable, they were ugly, they induced shame, guilt, in momentary slashes, but their people were submerged in her mind. If she thought about any of it at all, she thought it was Delhi, an eyesore, a sign of failure. But Dean saw the slums as people, and he saw their destruction as a tragedy.”
Again, the theme of awareness versus blindness comes up. It is often tempting to become blind to societal ills, especially when we feel that nothing can be done to bring about change. Yet, I feel that Deepti Kapoor is warning us against this blindness and shows how even though we may feel hopeless to bring about change, that to become numb to reality is a blindness that we cannot afford because it allows us to keep telling ourselves lies. Lies that may keep us from affecting change if an opportunity ever presents itself.
I have never been interested in reading gangster books, but it was the one selection of BOTM that intrigued me, and I’m glad I chose it. The author is skilled and has crafted an enthralling epic. Deepti Kapoor, in an NPR interview, describes Ajay as an <b> “oppressed everyman,” </b> and said that he is based on a young man she met while traveling. She describes seeing this faceless class of servants waiting on the wealthy. The book also seems to come from Kapoor’s sense of loss as her father died while she was at university, then not long after that, her first boyfriend died. She admits in an interview with <i>thehindu.com</i> that “Neda has parts of me. There’s a core of my life in the novel.” I felt this while I was reading about Neda, that the author had imparted something of herself into the way Neda was aware of and at the same time lamented her passivity. It was very powerful.
This is not a perfect novel. A new character is introduced at the end and his inclusion is not as smooth as I would have wished. The language and violence are gritty and while I did not think it sensationalized, there may be some who will. Every trigger warning you can imagine can be applied. While some are describing this novel as a ‘masala potboiler,’ I believe Kapoor has brought to life some exceptional characters that will be on my mind for quite some time. Ajay’s experiences and transformation are all too heartbreakingly real.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping, Alcohol, Car accident, Colonisation, Death of parent, Cursing, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, and Classism
breacommelafromage's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I really REALLY enjoyed this book and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for days.
I found the ending to be quite unsatisfying but not in a bad way if that makes sense? The author was very intentional with how they ended it and it makes perfect sense for the story but at the same time I wanted more!! I was just so engrossed with the lives and story of each character I didn’t want a vague ending — but that is just me being greedy as a reader and not a short coming of the writing.
I don’t know that this book will be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think the people it’s meant for, it will leave them reeling and with a massive book hang over the way it left me.
I found the ending to be quite unsatisfying but not in a bad way if that makes sense? The author was very intentional with how they ended it and it makes perfect sense for the story but at the same time I wanted more!! I was just so engrossed with the lives and story of each character I didn’t want a vague ending — but that is just me being greedy as a reader and not a short coming of the writing.
I don’t know that this book will be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think the people it’s meant for, it will leave them reeling and with a massive book hang over the way it left me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Car accident, and Gun violence
Minor: Fatphobia and Sexual violence
15ash's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.5
This is a much more violent read than I am use to, but I couldn’t get enough of it. The end has me wanting more!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident, Death, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Classism, Drug use, Gun violence, Murder, Suicide, Trafficking, Rape, Sexual content, Abortion, Addiction, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Slavery, Torture, and Violence
okiecozyreader's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
I loved this book so much until the last couple of hours. I was completely engrossed in the lives of Ajay, Sunny and Neda, I felt like I wouldn’t want it to end. It kind of took a dark and brutal turn (heavy on drug use and violence, not to say there wasn’t violence before). But the bulk of the book I truly loved. Such great storytelling; it kind of reminded me of the worlds Kristin Hannah creates, in which you miss the worlds and characters when they are gone.
From the first page, the story is gripping. They find Ajay in an expensive car, wrecked, which killed people. He is sent to prison, when he beats up some gang members who attack him, the warden tells him:
“ There’s been a mistake. I wasn’t told,” he says. “If I’d been told, this would never have happened. Really, no one knew, not even your friends. But things will be different. You’ll be taken to your friends here now. You’ll be free, within reason. And this unfortunate business with those other men, this will be forgotten…. You should have said something. You should have made it clear. You should have let us know. Why didn’t you let us know?”
Ajay stares at the food, at the cigarette pack. “Know what?”
The warden smiles. “That you’re a Wadia man.”
So then, we go back in time, to learn what it means that he’s a Wadia man. Later, we meet the infamous and wealthy Sunny Wadia, and Neda, the reporter; and how their lives all intersect. I loved each of these characters (until the end).
Part One
“…no one abuses him or threatens to kill him. It’s a better life than any he’s ever hoped for or known.” New Delhi 2004 / 4
“And he discovers something else: It gives him pleasure to please, it gives him pleasure to anticipate every possible need, not just Mummy’s and Daddy’s but everyone’s, the farm workers’, the animals’, the shopkeepers’ pleasure. Not just pleasure, not really, more like the stanching of a wound, more like the holding of a tide, a sacrifice, negating the trauma of his birth.” Maharajganj 1991 / 5
“The girls often ask about him. But he’s too shy; he recoils. He cannot conceive of it, his own body terrifies him, his own needs. He likes to set himself within limits; those limits keep him strong.” Maharajganj 1991 / 6
“Madam,” he replies. “Don’t tell us about our culture. We’re not zoo animals for your pleasure, not the smiling native to accessorize your enlightenment. The simplicity and honesty you think you know is simply your eyes deceiving your brain. …If you knew our culture, you’d know respect is one currency, but at the end of the day, money talks. Finally, understand this one thing. India is our country, not yours. You are guests here. We are great hosts, but don’t disrespect us in our own home.” Ch 7
“I’m tired. I’m stuck between the shit my father does and the things I can’t do.” Ch 15
“…she understood in that moment how the sources of strength are illusory.” Ch 15
“The chains of existence … have to be weak enough to break.” Ch 15
“Remember, nothing will change, this is Kali Yuga, the losing age, the age of vice.” Ch 16
From the first page, the story is gripping. They find Ajay in an expensive car, wrecked, which killed people. He is sent to prison, when he beats up some gang members who attack him, the warden tells him:
“ There’s been a mistake. I wasn’t told,” he says. “If I’d been told, this would never have happened. Really, no one knew, not even your friends. But things will be different. You’ll be taken to your friends here now. You’ll be free, within reason. And this unfortunate business with those other men, this will be forgotten…. You should have said something. You should have made it clear. You should have let us know. Why didn’t you let us know?”
Ajay stares at the food, at the cigarette pack. “Know what?”
The warden smiles. “That you’re a Wadia man.”
So then, we go back in time, to learn what it means that he’s a Wadia man. Later, we meet the infamous and wealthy Sunny Wadia, and Neda, the reporter; and how their lives all intersect. I loved each of these characters (until the end).
Part One
“…no one abuses him or threatens to kill him. It’s a better life than any he’s ever hoped for or known.” New Delhi 2004 / 4
“And he discovers something else: It gives him pleasure to please, it gives him pleasure to anticipate every possible need, not just Mummy’s and Daddy’s but everyone’s, the farm workers’, the animals’, the shopkeepers’ pleasure. Not just pleasure, not really, more like the stanching of a wound, more like the holding of a tide, a sacrifice, negating the trauma of his birth.” Maharajganj 1991 / 5
“The girls often ask about him. But he’s too shy; he recoils. He cannot conceive of it, his own body terrifies him, his own needs. He likes to set himself within limits; those limits keep him strong.” Maharajganj 1991 / 6
“Madam,” he replies. “Don’t tell us about our culture. We’re not zoo animals for your pleasure, not the smiling native to accessorize your enlightenment. The simplicity and honesty you think you know is simply your eyes deceiving your brain. …If you knew our culture, you’d know respect is one currency, but at the end of the day, money talks. Finally, understand this one thing. India is our country, not yours. You are guests here. We are great hosts, but don’t disrespect us in our own home.” Ch 7
“I’m tired. I’m stuck between the shit my father does and the things I can’t do.” Ch 15
“…she understood in that moment how the sources of strength are illusory.” Ch 15
“The chains of existence … have to be weak enough to break.” Ch 15
“Remember, nothing will change, this is Kali Yuga, the losing age, the age of vice.” Ch 16
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Alcohol
Moderate: Physical abuse, Abortion, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Police brutality, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Abandonment, and Death
hilaryreadsbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Emotional abuse, Addiction, Violence, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Sexual violence, Murder, Kidnapping, Cursing, Confinement, Rape, Gun violence, Drug use, Death, Self harm, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Trafficking, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Panic attacks/disorders, and Grief
More...