A Burning

I think this being an audio book made a big difference. The different voices and the accents enhanced the story and its unique structure. It also underscored the satire in this tragedy. It's a great cautionary tale about power's abuses and manipulations and the ways our individual flaws, wants and needs feed into that. Jivan is a young woman living in the slums near Kolkata when she witnesses a train fire on her way home from work at Pantaloons. She and her mother support her injured father and are trying desperately to leave the slums Eager to acquire Facebook likes on her brand new, first-ever phone, she makes a comment about a posted video alleging police just looked on. "If the police didn't help ordinary people like you and me, if show more police watched them die, doesn't that mean that the government is the real terrorist?" Boom! Within days, Jivan is arrested and said to be in league with the Muslim terrorists who bombed the train. Apparently a random boy she had texted with (also Facebook) was involved. It becomes a political issue too as the conservative party is seeking growth and election by playing on the people's fears and differences. Given Jivan's poverty, obviously good legal help is not an option. Moreover we get a little background on two key witnesses in her trial: her former teacher at her scholarship school, PT Sir desires respect at the all girls' school where he teaches PE (PT) and stumbles into that when he wanders into a crowd that is actually a political rally for the conservative party. By adjusting their sound system, he catches the attention of rising star Bimala Pal who recruits him for some party work - mainly being a fake witness at trials - and though he did know Jivan, he has to decide if he would rather be true to his principles or rise in the party. Similarly, the comic relief character, Lovely, a transgender actor whom Jivan was teaching English must decide if her rising career is worth selling out Jivan. To up the stakes, she is facing the death penalty. Fascinating interludes from random characters reveal a fuller picture of the social issues at play here - reminding me of Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. While we see a concentrated view of the impact of corruption on a few key characters, the interludes broaden the circle to show it is a much bigger problem nationwide. Because the story clips along and has a bit of distanced humor, it never comes across as preachy despite the heavy topic. What price for a piece of the pie? show less

A Burning was agonizing in the best way. Increasingly towards the end, I would reach the end of a chapter and think, ‘if I just stop now, I can still imagine a happy ending,’ but I’m glad I never did.

It was a deeply political story touching on issues of poverty, corruption, nationalism, religious discrimination, trans issues, and more, all tied to the central theme of how morals can become compromised, and other people can be sacrificed to reach a better life.

I often dreaded PT Sir’s chapters as he fell further into right-wing politics. He was exactly the type of man who I could imagine taking that path, from the moment, in his first chapter, when his response to Jivan disappearing from his school without a goodbye or a thank show more you was anger and to reframe her as an ungrateful leech on his goodwill, rather than worry for her. His disregard for the female teachers he worked with and the sense that his disillusionment was unique from anyone around him only added to it. But he was far from a flat caricature or a simple villain. He was often just a man who wanted to do good, but also wanted recognition, power, and money, and the latter won out over the former. He was a teacher who quietly provided food for an impoverished student, no strings attached. He was a politician who genuinely wanted his party to favor improving conditions for teachers and students over focusing on using the education system to push propaganda. But he craved recognition and power; he desired to be looked on by others as someone who had earned a place above them. And that won out. He allowed himself to be the man who would give false testimony that ruined lives for money and who would consign a young woman to death to advance his political career. His descent throughout the book as he threw himself in with the Jana Kalyan Party and increasingly lied to himself to avoid facing the choice between his promising career and his morals head-on was frustrating and compelling in equal measures. There were so many points– points that he recognized as well– where he could have turned back.

Lovely added a dimension to that story of corruption by showing similar temptations from a wholly different perspective. She could not have been more different from PT Sir. Where he was financially comfortable and socially privileged, but bored of the monotony of his life and ready to be swept up in anything more exciting, Lovely was poor and disdained by society, kicked out of her parents house for being a hijra and living as part of a hijra community in which she begged and offered blessings for a living, but possessed a vivacity and internal drive that never let her stagnate. She held more tightly to her morals, but the consequences for her were much higher. Her temptation was closer to a struggle for survival, a better life right on the horizon if she would just abandon another poor, vilified woman. I wish I knew more about the hijra community to be able to say if she was a good or bad representation, but she was certainly an interesting character to see and something of a look at hijra communities. show less

This is a beautifully-written, heartbreaking debut novel. It takes place in India and is about Jivan, a young woman who comes from extreme poverty but hopes to live a middle class life. She leaves school after finishing tenth grade to work at a shop called Pantaloons. She is arrested by the government for what is construed as a terrorist act, but what was truly a momentarily poor choice she made innocently enough. We meet her struggling parents and her friend Lovely, an hijra (transsexual) she is tutoring in English. We also learn about PT Sir who had been her physical education teacher at school. The story follows the trajectory of Jivan, Lovely and PT Sir through time and the influences they have on each other.

This is the kind of book show more that, once again in my life, makes me hate politics, mostly for the damage it does to some individuals and for shining a light on how corrupt it can be. I like this story, however, for its characters, and the way the story is told in halting English dialect. I would gladly read more of this author’s work and thought she created a deeply sad, but wonderful first novel. I wish her success on her future career in writing. She is off to an excellent start. show less

I read an ARC via Netgalley

Told by alternating narrators the story centres on a young woman accused of a terrorist act. She is jailed based on little more than evidence that she was at the train station. We gradually learn how she came to live in the city, the story of her family's poverty. A hijra*, Lovely, tells her story of exclusion and of ambition to be an actress. And "PT Sir" (he's a sports teacher) gives his account of climbing the greasy pole of politics, witnessing abject poverty, promising much and supporting communal violence. Although Lovely offers some light relief with her wonderful ambition in the face of almost universal ridicule, there are no happy endings here. Majumdar looks directly at poverty and corruption and show more creates a narrative that asks hard questions about all those who choose not to see those suffering from bad government. Sometimes I felt as though I was reading from behind my fingers and had to put the book down for a bit. So not a light read by any means. But a powerful one.

"When Bimala Pal speaks next, he understands that she has known what happened all along.

If anybody asks, she tells him, PT Sir is to say that the unstable brick house in which the man was living collapsed. It spontaneously collapsed. And how does PT Sir know? He was doing a rally nearby. It is true that the house did collapse—when the party wrecked it with hammer and ax. It is true that the house did fall upon a man who died.

All of that is true, Bimala Pal reminds him, a gentle smile on her face." show less

“Words. I know they are potent; they can bind and heal, rejuvenate and transform. But, I also know, in equal measure, they can kill.”

Wow! This is an impressive debut. Book of the summer? Well, I think so. In the opening pages, we are introduced to Jivan, a young Muslim woman, who has been trying to do all the right things to raise herself out the slum that she grew up in. All is shiny, until she witnesses the aftermath of a terrorist attack, where a train car is set on fire, burning many passengers. Using her very first smartphone, she logs into Facebook and leaves a fateful message, angered by the poor police reaction to the attack. Suddenly she finds herself, charged and jailed as a terrorist.
This is a riveting read, looking at show more class, justice and corruption. We have a new literary voice in town, and I welcome Majumdar with open arms. show less

Nothing good comes to the innocent. The powerful entrench their power, and the poor dream of a modestly better life.

This dark novel is about all the lives ruined by power. Some climb the ladder at the cost of their honor. Some are crushed by the wheels of power. There is no progress, no change. Just a hopeless world rendered beautifully in Majumdar's unflinching prose.

The full cast audiobook was a special treat.

In my top five novels of 2020 thus far, this quiet yet monumental story just about stopped my heart. Set in India in a city where violent acts affecting both Hindus and Muslims are common, Jivan, a young shopgirl from a poor Muslim family, is accused of being in league with terrorists who set a train on fire, killing a hundred innocents. Defending her are PT Sir, a gym teacher at the private school where Jiven was a scholarship student, and Lovely, a hijira (third gender/transsexual woman), who is learning English from Jivan so that she can pursue a film career. Once arrested due to a Facebook post criticizing the government's response to the event, Jivan cannot be saved by either her parents or by the two others. Pt Sir attends a show more political rally and rises to a position of power within the ambit of a powerful and corrupt local politician. Lovely shares a video of her performance in acting class and starts trending. Told from the three perspectives, with additional voices forming a tragic chorus, the fate of innocent Jivan will burn into your memory. The writing is so simple, true, and fine that it makes other novels seem trivial in comparison. I would rank it with Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist in the utterly amazing skill of this debut author.

Quote: "From my mother's immense strength, I have borrowed a little." show less