MUMBAISTAN
3 EXPLOSIVE CRIME THRILLERS
By PIYUSH JHA
3 EXPLOSIVE CRIME THRILLERS
By PIYUSH JHA
Piyush Jha’s Mumbaistan is a novel that can be
said to be composed of three different novellas. As the title of the book
suggests, the entire plot has been drawn from the city of dreams itself,
Mumbai. The characters have been picked from the myriad walks of life and the
author seems to have picked them up deliberately in order to showcase the
plurality of the old, brooding city.
The choice of crime fiction is though quite
uncustomary for most Indian writers yet Piyush does handle the genre
commendably. Piyush’s writing clearly shows that he knows the city inside out
and this helps the readers in visualising the city by means of his words.
The characters in the three stories are
commonplace and have been culled from different walks of life. Mumbai is the
only link that connects them as they make their journey from revenge to
redemption. The novel at times seems like an effort to disrupt the glitzy and
glamorous image of the metropolis as it lays bare the squalor of poverty,
corruption and crime that thrives within the superficial charms of the city.
The novel opens with Bomb Day, a story that
revolves around a cop, a prostitute and her lover. The next story is spun
around the life of a doctor who wants to avenge people involved in the
illegitimate act of organ trading. The last of the three stories is centred on
a man who wakes up to life after spending twenty long years in coma and is now
trying to get a grasp of reality.
The diction draws the readers into the
storyline which makes for a good reading experience.
Rating: ☆☆☆1/2
~overview~
Mumbai, a city of dreams for many. But for others, a nightmare. Behind the faade of lustre and glamour churns a seething underbelly of squalor, corruption and crime.
Mumbaistans three explosive crime novellas unravel the subterranean secrets of maximum cityfrom the teeming maw of Dharavi and the wanton streets of Kamathipura to the swank high-rises of Bandra.
A prostitute, her lover and a policeman play for high stakes in Bomb-Day. Injectionwala exposes chilling medical malpractices and a lovelorn vigilantes twisted game plan. In Coma Man, a man awakens from coma after twenty years, and sets out in search of his wife and himself.
Macabre love stories, conniving cops and hard-boiled slumlords form the backdrop of a schizophrenic city that is brooding...dying.
Welcome to Mumbaistan; a gritty, compelling take on the megalopolis that lives on the edge.
Mumbaistans three explosive crime novellas unravel the subterranean secrets of maximum cityfrom the teeming maw of Dharavi and the wanton streets of Kamathipura to the swank high-rises of Bandra.
A prostitute, her lover and a policeman play for high stakes in Bomb-Day. Injectionwala exposes chilling medical malpractices and a lovelorn vigilantes twisted game plan. In Coma Man, a man awakens from coma after twenty years, and sets out in search of his wife and himself.
Macabre love stories, conniving cops and hard-boiled slumlords form the backdrop of a schizophrenic city that is brooding...dying.
Welcome to Mumbaistan; a gritty, compelling take on the megalopolis that lives on the edge.
