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Today's Gazette
In the aftermath of 'that night'
Darkly funny novel has a cast of quirky characters
GEETA NADKARNI, Freelance
Published: Saturday, October 13Animal's People
By Indra Sinha
Simon & Schuster UK, 384 pages, $19.99
I'll say it, and I'll say it off the top: This book will change your life. Once you meet Animal, our narrator, you'll be hard-pressed to get his crude, boisterous but incredibly compelling mix of "Inglis," Hindi and French out of your head.
So it happened with Indra Sinha, the author of Animal's People. Sinha, an award-winning copywriter and author, started writing what he thought was going to be a screenplay about the real-life tragedy that took place on Dec. 3, 1984, in Bhopal, India. A Union Carbide pesticide plant sprang a noxious leak that killed about 3,000 people on the spot, and continues to kill them 23 years and several generations later. But the screenplay wouldn't come, and the story defied all attempts at fictionalization.
Until, that is, a friend inadvertently planted the seed for the perfect narrator. He was telling Sinha about a boy who was obliged to go about on all fours because of his twisted spine. Something clicked, and Animal was born.
Animal lives in the Bhopal-like city of Khaufpur (in Urdu, khauf means fear, or the opposite of hope). He is not an easy character. He is 19 and like most young men his age, is self-
centred, horny, vulgar, opinionated and often confused about his identity. But unlike most, Animal has to live with a deformity that means he will likely never hold his head higher than crotch level. That he will never have a chance to win the hand of the beautiful and elegant Nisha and will instead have to content himself with spying on her through her bedroom window and poisoning the man she prefers, the saintly Zafar, who has made it his life's mission to fight "the Kampani."
The "Kampani," as all Khaufpuris refer to it, has never had to answer for what happened "That Night," when deadly chemicals burst from its factory, releasing a cloud that burned the hope from Khaufpuri souls even as it stung their lungs and poisoned their wombs.
So when the blue-jeans-clad "Amrikan," Elli "Doctress," shows up in Khaufpur and opens up a free clinic to help victims of poisoning, everyone is immediately suspicious. Zafar, believing that Elli is collecting false data to help the Kampani avoid liability, calls a boycott, and Animal is sent in to "jamispond" (spy - the Hindified pronunciation of James Bond). But things get complicated when Elli awakens in Animal the long dormant hope that somehow, some day, he'll be able to stand up straight and, in his own mind, deserve a shot at being human.
The book is peopled with more quirky characters than I have space to name. Like Ma Franci, the French nun who cared for Animal after That Night, but who has been driven mad by the chemicals. She can no longer speak or understand anything but French, and hears every other language as gibberish. Kha-in-the-jar is a foul mouthed, two-headed foetus enraged because he's dead before he even had a chance to be born. Pandit Somraj used to be a famous singer till That Night stole the breath from his lungs, but who still hears music in frogs and bhutt-bhutt pigs.
By telling the story of Animal's People in Animal's own voice, Indra Sinha has created a masterpiece. He has done a magnificent job of writing in English (any Hindi, local dialect or French that appears is translated), but preserving the flow, Yoda-like syntax and music of spoken Hindi. Be warned though - there are more "f'" and "c" words in here than there are commas. According to the editor's note at the beginning of the book, the entire book is dictated by Animal on cassette tape and is to be published verbatim, if translated.
On his website, www.indrasinha.com, Sinha says that the book refused to be written in anything but Animal's voice, and once he learned to trust that voice, the writing got much easier.
Sinha's instincts as a writer are eerily good. His characters are vivid and his imagery even richer. The book starts at a trot and picks up speed at every twist, driven by the simultaneously repellent and magnetic narration of Animal. The LSD-like dream sequences may not be for everybody, but I was so sucked in that I risked nausea on the bus to read the final chapters. The end, by the way, did not disappoint despite its somewhat facile Biblical echoes.
Animal's People is a stunning book - one that has its roots in unspeakable tragedy, but manages to stay upbeat, darkly funny and utterly devoid of self-pity. It's a book that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.
Animal's People is on the short list for the Man Booker Prize. The winner is to be named Tuesday.
Geeta Nadkarni is a Montreal writer.
