Sunday, July 06, 2003
Bunker 13
I am currently reading "Bunker 13" by former Tehelka and Outlook correspondent, Aniruddha Bahal. The book is interesting, if for nothing else, because it literally goes where no credible Indian writer has gone before. I'll save myself some trouble and let Time do the reviewing.
The book's strangest quality is that it has only the faintest tint or scent of India. Except for proper names, the book's vernacular and cultural references are almost entirely American, and impressively authentic at that. The hard-boiled dialogue is straight out of classic Hollywood, a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Anglo-American spy spoof. If Bond and Matt Helm outrageously flout social norms, MM seems to follow an inverted morality, almost defying the reader to accept him. Yet there's something charmingly retro about Bahal's "outlaw" approach. His closest literary parallel is with the Beats: the grim, druggy surrealism of William S. Burroughs, the headlong rush of Jack Kerouac.
Time is also carrying a short Q & A with Bahal.
The book's strangest quality is that it has only the faintest tint or scent of India. Except for proper names, the book's vernacular and cultural references are almost entirely American, and impressively authentic at that. The hard-boiled dialogue is straight out of classic Hollywood, a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Anglo-American spy spoof. If Bond and Matt Helm outrageously flout social norms, MM seems to follow an inverted morality, almost defying the reader to accept him. Yet there's something charmingly retro about Bahal's "outlaw" approach. His closest literary parallel is with the Beats: the grim, druggy surrealism of William S. Burroughs, the headlong rush of Jack Kerouac.
Time is also carrying a short Q & A with Bahal.
