Scan barcode
A review by paintedverse
Leila by Prayaag Akbar
3.0
No, Mama, prop me up to a high ceilinged garden. My tiny feet, they will walk on the artificial grass and sustain in an artificial environment. But Mama, never would I ever think of traversing the world with you.
- The Leila I created in my mind
Never before has a speculative fiction made me so uncomfortable and fearful. After all, even though they were fearsome, they didn't feel like home while this, Leila by Prayaag Akbar, felt so close to home that it started feeling like I am living in it. This book doesn't feel distant, it doesn't feel like a far-fetched future that might someday be our reality. It is now. This class division, this caste discrimination, this climate crisis - all of it is as real as our yearning for development. The only condition that it needs to fulfill in order to be called a social fiction instead of a speculative fiction is that the country turning its imaginative walls into real, concrete walls.
A work of fiction, especially a speculative fiction, I feel, can't represent the whole world in less than 400 pages. Thus, the novel is a representative of that large fragment of society that discriminates, oppresses, tolerates and resists everyday. It doesn't represent the handful of people who, either have been ignorant of the discrimination or have unlearned and learnt to love all. I have never felt that in my time, society has comprised itself with the poor, the oppressed, the intentionally forgotten and ignored section. In fact, I haven't ever believed in a society. It has always been an 'amalgamation' of various societies. Prayaag Akbar has done a wonderful job in depicting the fragmentary society that we live in. The only problem that I felt with the book is that it wasn't able to maintain its strength throughout the work. To me, it felt like the narration had lost itself as it started approaching the end. Don't let this opinion bar you from picking up this book though. This is a book that needs to be picked up, read, realised and change the self that you've been carrying with yourself all along. I realised that I have a dark side in me, have you?
- The Leila I created in my mind
Never before has a speculative fiction made me so uncomfortable and fearful. After all, even though they were fearsome, they didn't feel like home while this, Leila by Prayaag Akbar, felt so close to home that it started feeling like I am living in it. This book doesn't feel distant, it doesn't feel like a far-fetched future that might someday be our reality. It is now. This class division, this caste discrimination, this climate crisis - all of it is as real as our yearning for development. The only condition that it needs to fulfill in order to be called a social fiction instead of a speculative fiction is that the country turning its imaginative walls into real, concrete walls.
A work of fiction, especially a speculative fiction, I feel, can't represent the whole world in less than 400 pages. Thus, the novel is a representative of that large fragment of society that discriminates, oppresses, tolerates and resists everyday. It doesn't represent the handful of people who, either have been ignorant of the discrimination or have unlearned and learnt to love all. I have never felt that in my time, society has comprised itself with the poor, the oppressed, the intentionally forgotten and ignored section. In fact, I haven't ever believed in a society. It has always been an 'amalgamation' of various societies. Prayaag Akbar has done a wonderful job in depicting the fragmentary society that we live in. The only problem that I felt with the book is that it wasn't able to maintain its strength throughout the work. To me, it felt like the narration had lost itself as it started approaching the end. Don't let this opinion bar you from picking up this book though. This is a book that needs to be picked up, read, realised and change the self that you've been carrying with yourself all along. I realised that I have a dark side in me, have you?