Club You to Death + Murder at the Mushaira + more

Contains purple people, Mirza Ghalib and a fat cat

Some weeks (months? Who can tell anymore…) ago, I’d recorded a little video on Instagram in which I grumbled about how some genres of writing get more love than others and that kiddie fiction just does not get the respect it deserves in India. And yet, as the published author of two kid lit titles, I can confirm that it is immensely satisfying to write these books.

Writing a book for children means people share with you videos in which you can see munchkins poring over your book, which is adorable and uplifting. If you’re lucky, it also means getting to work with people who care passionately about the genre and the work they do. I’m reasonably sure I wouldn’t have felt as giddy about my two books if I didn’t have Bijal Vaccharajani and her team from Pratham Books nurturing the Puchku project. Puchku and gang wouldn’t be the delight they are if Bijal hadn’t roped in the fantastic Rajiv Eipe, who is responsible for the genius idea of making Puchku purple and making the books the visual treats they are.

In Puchku Seeks a Song,Puchku teams up with her two friends, Boltu and Dodla, to find harmony in cacophony. The story’s been out online since 2019, but to really appreciate Rajiv’s beautiful work, please acquire the printed version. And while you’re at the Storyweaver store, do yourself a favour and get PS What’s Up with the Climate? (I showed you excerpts from it here) and Asamo, Is That You?, which somehow manages to be scary, gorgeous, cinematic and cute all at the same time. Storyweaver is a proper treasure trove and while the books are ridiculously cheap (grants and philanthropy FTW!), they’re also beautifully produced.   

For Puchku redux, I wanted to write a story about failure and trusting yourself despite setbacks; about friendship and community. It was my reaction to hearing the divisive “us and them” rhetoric in our politics and the lack of empathy in our social discourse. It was me raging against those figures of authority who want us to adopt a herd mentality and tell us to categorise certain people as outsiders who must be attacked. Puchku Seeks a Song reacts to all this, if you’re looking to be analytical. Otherwise, it’s three (brilliant) kids on a quest that involves a baby bird.

In terms of storytelling, Puchku Seeks A Songh is a lot more ambitious than the first Puchku, which was basically me sticking my tongue out at the idea that books for kids must be educational. Not that there’s anything wrong with good educational books, but if you don’t associate reading with fun, I don’t think you’re likely to learn anything from the books you read. You’ll memorise stuff and promptly forget them when you find something that actually entertains you (instead of lecturing you). At least that’s my theory.  So, the only lesson I incorporated into A Book for Puchku was that you should be careful of what you use to climb bookshelves. The much more significant lesson that adults must remember consent is important when reaching out to paw kids and that kids should expect these courtesies from adults was Bijal’s excellent edit.

So yes, the long and short of it is that after writing a book in which the subtext was “To hell with books that have lessons for readers!”, I wrote a book with lessons for readers.

And now for some murder.

Club You To Death by Anuja Chauhan is one of the most anticipated titles of this year because I think we all felt that the universe owed us some good, clever entertainment this year (also because Chauhan’s last two books have been clunkers). Chauhan is best known for writing sweet and funny romances, like Those Pricey Thakur Girls, The Zoya Factor, and Battle for Bittora. (Whatever you do, do NOT pick up The House that BJ Built. Even if someone gives it to you for free.) Reading Chauhan’s books is almost always a nostalgia trip through a genteel Delhi and you stay with her stories not for the suspense of what’s going to happen, but because you want to know how Chauhan will describe it. The wit, mischief and intelligence of Chauhan’s narrative voice makes her one of our most distinctive storytellers. It’s not just that she weaves Hindi words into her English (which she does, and elegantly at that), but that she incorporates the lilts and rhythms of our non-English speech into regular, grammatically-sound English. There are very few authors whom you can practically hear while reading their work. Chauhan is one of them (though you probably need to have some idea of what Delhi is like to fully appreciate the cleverness of her narrative voice).

With Club You to Death, Chauhan returns to Delhi’s posh set but this time, the story is set in the present and it’s not a romance. When a personal trainer is found dead — choked to death by a barbell — in the gym of Delhi Turf Club, ACP Bhavani Singh is tasked with figuring out who among the club’s well-heeled members is the killer. Army veteran uncles, socialite aunties, granite-tough businesswomen, seriously organic beetroots — everything and everyone is suspect. It soon becomes evident that the personal trainer wasn’t quite an innocent victim and in an effort to distract us from the one credible suspect in the case, Chauhan scatters red herrings throughout the story with the kind of gusto I imagine only Swedes have shown for that particular fish species.

The sleights of hand aren’t only in the plot, but also in the storytelling. You may expect Kashi, the hot, young, idealistic lawyer (with a six pack. Amen), to be the protagonist of Club You To Death because he absolutely fits the mould of a Chauhan hero, but no. Bhavani is the star of this book. The mild-mannered policeman loves his wife, likes his tipple and has the spine that’s necessary to stand up to pressure from those higher than him in the police and social hierarchy. Bhavani reminded me a lot of Inspector Hadpude from my novel, Hush A Bye Baby. Both are deceptively easy-going and capable of being sly for (what they think is) a good cause. Only Bhavani is a whole lot funnier, sunnier and fitter than Hadpude.

Club You to Death is not a book you should read for plot but rather for Chauhan’s narration. In addition to that charming combination of wit and insight that characterises her writing, she tucks in adorable/ hilarious details like Bhavani doing the 11-minute Canadian air force workout or the socialite artist who makes “Shivbling” (lingams that are decorated with bling). Admittedly, the twists aren’t particularly twisty and chances are, you’ll guess whodunit well before the book reaches the halfway mark, but that won’t make you lose interest in Club You to Death. Why? Because Chauhan lobbing gently-humorous pot shots at the Delhi elite is way too much fun to abandon midway. This is a novel that’s just begging to be adapted to a smartly-commercial film, but we probably should not hope for such things, given the mess that people have made of Chauhan’s work in the past when adapting them.

However, for all its charm, the novel also shows Chauhan’s limitations. The characters feel two-dimensional, the plot is laboured and it’s very obvious that once Chauhan steps out of Lutyens Delhi — geographically and figuratively — her storytelling suffers. Noida, for example, seems to be where characters are banished when Chauhan can’t figure out what to do with them.  

The murder mystery is essentially the lens Chauhan uses to examine privilege and entitlement in Delhi, which is something she does well though without any scathing critique. This is satire at its sweetest; not at its most biting. From time to time, Chauhan reminds her reader just how many social evils she’s tackling in one story and at one point, the list reads like a litany. It’s impressive that she’s covered so much ground, but Club You to Death is also the closest that Chauhan has come to being preachy. It’s only because she’s such a good storyteller that we don’t mind it.

Moving on.

Here’s a mystery for you.

Those are the front and back covers of Murder at the Mushaira, designed by Bena Sareen, who is without doubt one of the finest book designers we have and thanks to whom Aleph’s books almost always look magnificent. Murder at the Mushaira’s cover is exactly as stunning as you expect a Bena Sareen cover to be, but for the life of me I don’t understand why she chose to slap the entire first page of the novel (in teensy-weensy font) on the back cover instead of saying, “Delhi, 1857. A poet has been murdered and poet laureate Mirza Ghalib is the detective on the case.”

Because that’s what this novel is — a murder mystery, set in 1857, with Mirza Ghalib as detective.

Sukhan Khairabadi is not a popular man and when at the end of an all-night poetry event that was attended by many, he’s found with a dagger through his heart, the list of suspects is long. The man who has to find the killer in record time is young Kirorimal Chainsukh of Chandni Chowk police station. He asks his family friend and poet laureate Mirza Ghalib for help because Mirza is a man of many talents. Mirza ropes in his scientist friend, Master Ramachandra, and as the two of them figure out who killed Khairabadi, Mirza also unearths secrets that are worth dying for.

As a murder mystery, Murder at the Mushaira is neatly plotted, but within a couple of chapters, it becomes very clear that the investigation is an excuse to reimagine the days that led up to the First War of Independence. Author Raza Mir also seems to lose interest in the murder investigation along the way and wraps it up hastily as the preparation for the insurrection reaches its climax. By the time it’s revealed to us who killed Khairabadi and why, we’re far more interested in finding out more about the rebel network and how they’ll make their stand against the British.

While it may not be a great murder mystery, Mir’s novel is a very good example of historical fiction done right. With Mir’s Mirza as your guide, you walk through a grand but decaying old Delhi; find your way to a kathak dancer’s speakeasy-esque establishment; smell the air made fragrant with street food. Mir romanticises that bygone era for the benefit of fiction, but he does it in a way that feels rooted in fact.

Well-researched as it may be, this is an entirely fictional tale. While there probably were stretches of Delhi where you could breathe in the aromas of ghee, roasting meat and the sugar being caramelised, this city is a figment of Mir’s imagination. Murder at the Mushaira is set in a 19th century Delhi that is informed by modern values and sensibilities. For instance, the main characters in the novel are almost all critical of class, conservatism and social hierarchies in ways that reflect our contemporary concerns. Women occupy the narrative prominently, rather than sitting on the periphery. The poor and unprivileged, like guards and other menial workers, are ignored by their masters but given voice and space by the novelist. There’s also a gay romance and we are told Mirza was open-minded enough to not frown upon it. None of these modern elements are a bad thing. They serve to create a much richer narrative by including perspectives that are rarely acknowledged by recorded history.

Mir has also created some wonderful characters, not the least of which is his Mirza, who moonlights as a detective and plays a key role in the rebellion of 1857 (none of this is rooted in fact). Murder at the Mushaira also introduces us to a number of excellent imaginary women, like the kathak dancer Ratna bai (I loved the detail that her establishment was next to a mosque and ultimately, Ratna bai was able to escape with the help of her Wahabi neighbours) and the painter Hyderi Begum.

I hadn’t expected to enjoy Murder at the Mushaira as much as I did, especially since we all know how well the First War of Independence worked out for Delhi. (In case you don’t, it was horrific. The rebels were able to boot the British soldiers out of the city, but the British soon regained control of Delhi and the city was savagely and brutally punished. Mirza Ghalib wrote about the carnage and his letters indicate that he was not particularly sympathetic to the rebels, unlike Mir’s Mirza.) Mir’s novel is full of the kind of stories you wish were history and for most of the time that you spend with his novel, they feel as real as any historical record.  

Incidentally, if you’re interested, I’d spoken about fiction and how it helps to preserve certain ideas and stories in this podcast. This is the Spotify link, but I think it’s available on all major podcast platforms.  

And with that, I will sign off.

Take care, keep wearing those masks and stay safe.

Thank you for reading. Dear Reader will be back soon.