leila
Author - Prayaag Akbar
Publisher- Simon & Schuster, Rs 599
Aside from the political and social commentary, what sets Prayaag Akbar’s first book apart is that it is a highly emotional journey about a mother-daughter relationship. What also strengthens leila is that it brings to the fore complex human relationships and feelings with ease and makes them universally relatable — beyond the barriers of time and space, writes ANANYA BORGOHAIN
Prayaag Akbar’s leila can be fascinatingly surreal and social at the same time. Exploring the trauma of a mother, Shalini, who has lost her three year old daughter, leila, the novel is intriguing yet charming. But it is not just a mother’s agony that lays the genesis of book. It takes only a few pages to discover that her Muslim husband Riz is murdered soon too. leila’s disappearance is associated with the political scenario of our country, which makes the book a sharp commentary in today’s paranoid times. Akbar, based in Mumbai, was recently in Delhi as his book also marks the beginning of publishing house Simon and Schuster’s Indian imprint. leila is already being seen as an engaging sci-fi novel.
Sitting at the quaint Café Turtle in Khan Market, on the floor above the popular Full Circle bookstore, Akbar dismisses claims that his book is a sci-fi novel. He says, “I am aware that it is being compared to science fiction but for me, it’s just fiction! Fiction enables you to cross barriers and time constraints. It makes you move beyond the ordinary. There are multiple possibilities that are allowed when you write fiction. It takes you places.” However, dystopia cannot be entirely detached from the novel. It does not wait for the readers to ease into it. It opens rather dramatically (“My husband thinks we cannot find her”) at a time when communities are segregated on the basis of ‘purity’ and are ruled by the Council. Whoever does not follow the diktats of the Council, are taken to task by the aggressive force, the Repeaters. People who do not abide by the ‘moral’ rules are sent to Purity Camp: “The Council was determined to instill discipline. The pills helped. We found other ways to cope. Many picked up odd little habits, anxious for routine. A bee that fights its way out of a beer first performs muddled rotations of the mug, looping wider and wider in the afternoon air. That’s what a lot of us were like at Camp. Doing desperate little things so we could remember what was normal.”
The london School of Economics graduate author states, “I have only lived in cities. And what bothers me about cities is that we tend to shut off the outside world. We escape into our homes and overlook the reality on the streets. There is so much withdrawal. Even in cities, it is quite evident how the rigid caste system in India is still being followed. These are the factors that have crept into the book.” leila thus becomes a mirror to an uneven society that thrives on inequity, oppression, heartlessness, violence and vigilante justice.
At the same time, is it confined just to India thoughIJ In this post-Trump era, isn’t almost every country resorting to self-interestsIJ The Council, the Repeaters, or the Purity Camp no longer seem to be the preserve of the ‘third world’ alone. Which is also why the novel has been compared with George Orwell’s dystopia, 1984. However, it’s JM Coetzee that Akbar says inspires him the most. “The ease with which Coetzee writes and the issues that he talks about is inspiring. He has had a lasting impact on me.”
The author has also been a journalist. Naturally then, being a journalist must have made him privy to various facets of society; and probably, the events in leila are triggered by specific moments in our political or social history. He replies, “I guess so, but there is no one incident that made me write it. As a journalist, we witness a lot of things, we are put in different situations, we get a lot of ideas. This is how this book has seen the light of day. Journalism makes you curious; you start to question, to reason.” He continues, “The political is merged with the personal. The political changes and their personal impact are universal human concerns.”
Aside from the political and social commentary, what sets the book apart is that it is a highly emotional journey about a mother-daughter relationship. Even amidst time travelling and impending dystopia, it’s the interpersonal human relationships that form the core of the novel. It establishes that sentiments remain the same, however abstract they may be. As he writes, “Sometimes when I look in the mirror, it seems like something vital has been drawn from me — a monster emerged from sleep and shadow and took to my breast and now I have begun to shrivel. I admit I do want sympathy. For her to grasp what I’ve been through.”
What strengthensleila is that it brings to the fore complex human relationships and feelings with ease and makes them universally relatable.