To Modi, Via Office of Oppression Olympics, From Mr Nijhawan

Your Highness Mr. Narendra Modi, 

You are the prime minister of India, one of the world's largest democracies. They say you 

This is the words of Deenu a semi literate teenage orphan who have apparently been forced by circumstances to become a pickpocketer for an organized criminal organization in Anil Nijhawan's The Pickpocket's Letter which I am currently reading. Why I say apparently is for I am on just page 32 of the book, and it's the ARC epub file so it's counting the title and copyright and all that stuff too. Why I needed to stop and write a post here I will tell in a moment but I think the fact that Deenu used Yours Highness rather than the correct style Honorable tells us that he indeed is semi literate in universe as well as the Political leanings of the author in the real world. Remember the 'No Kings' in the west?

But back to India and back to the book. In just the few pages I have left we have already encountered:

1. Caste Oppression 
2. Child Trafficking 
3. Ingrained victimization 
4. Trivialisation of Hindu rituals 
5. Caricature of Pandits ("as if she needed blessings by the potbellied men of God who chewed pan and gutka while chanting Shlokas")
6. Child Abuse
7. Child abandonment 
8. Child sexual abuse
9. Child Sexual abuse (but the offender and victim are both female this time)
10. RSS ki Sazish "It is not you [Modi] but the RSS who are in charge." 
11. Animal abuse
12. Sociopathic behaviour 
13. Sadism
14. Body mutilation 
15. Schizophrenia 
16. Other mental health disorders
17. Loneliness epidemic 
18. Acceptance of hierarchy, of मात्स्यन्याय
19. RSS is actually Taliban ("It's a rightwing Hindu organisation. It wants to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra, a bit like the Taliban, who wants to create a Muslim state.")

This may not be complete for I started reading this as a fiction and not keeping track of all the categories of which categories of Oppression Olympics the author wanted the book to compete it. Liberal (pun intended) does of variants of "Now, Mr Modiji" is sprinkled throughout the text. 

There is a story which upto this point is how Deenu lived in an orphanage and wants to escape from it and later works as a pickpocket but it drowns down while meeting the criterias for the Oppression Olympics. Sadly it makes not for an intresting read. 

I know I am not the most humane and compassionate man and the blog is witness to my shortcomings  but still I can tolerate, even appreciate, social messaging in fiction. I think most good fiction (and not the trashy quick stress busters which I confessed to have stared reading) gives some kind of message even if the author didn't actually intend it to have one at the start. Even if it has a social message, it can be very powerful. Bitter Virgin the manga bought even me to tears. I have never looked at rape victims the same before. It also awakened a love for the art of Manga. 

This work however does nothing of that sort. It's a political rant wrapped in a story. The accumulation of suffering feels less like insight and more like a checklist, and the narrative is repeatedly sacrificed at the altar of ideological urgency. Suffering is piled upon suffering without allowing any one of them the narrative space to breathe, reflect, or transform the characters meaningfully. It's just the Operation Olympics version of Club 99 from Krish, Trish and Baltiboy. Had this not been an ARC copy, I would have dropped the book here. But I must keep my word and read on, even if only to see whether the story ever manages to reclaim the space it has surrendered.