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Amrita has now to come face to
face with the horrors of her past in order to solve the mystery,
which seems to threaten her own life in the present. The novel
is written as a duet for two voices. One belongs to Amrita and
the other to Deepak, an investigative reporter from India. We
are taken through their memories of riot-torn Delhi where
neighbours hid behind closed doors while Sikh friends were
tortured and killed next door, where everyone looks at each
other with suspicion and even children somehow donlook innocent
anymore. Deepak, too, has lost his family in the riots and has
since then wandered in the by-lanes of Punjab looking for
answers to questions no one seems to dare to ask. A Punjab where
"you lived the life of a chameleon. If a militant knocked
on your door, you opened it with a smile and, with folded hands,
offered him a meal. If he asked for money, you paid up. If a
policeman came by, you did the same."
The novel is a
haunting account of militancy in Punjab, which terrorised the
state for years after the ‘84 riots. A militancy that no one
joined but into which they were sucked: "Some by the call
of cause and religion; some by the excesses of the police and
the government; some by the opportunity for loot; and still some
by the chance for fame…."
Amrita and Deepak
lived through their terrible ordeals while their families did
not. It is impossible to read the novel without a sense that war
and rioting can be almost as terrible to those who survive it as
those who do not.
After having won
awards for his articles, poetry and short stories, Vikram Kapur
gives us a straightforward but gripping narrative in his debut
novel. The novel manages to successfully blend political history
with mystery, adding just the right touch of romance to make it
a truly interesting work. His painstaking research shows in the
details of the political scenario in northern India during the
late eighties, which makes his work readable and informative.
However, his inexperience with the genre of novel shows through
in the parts that are purely fiction, which seem to be written
in a somewhat hurried manner. Nevertheless, Time is a Fire
announces the arrival of a talented and imaginative writer.
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MEMORIES
can often be painful, especially when they deal with an idyllic past
gone sour. It was the night of October 31, 1984, a night of terror
and blood, when the streets of Delhi were filled with murderous mobs
out to teach the Sikhs a lesson—retaliation for the assassination
of Indira Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards. It was where began the
journey of Amrita Gill, the heroine of Vikram Kapur’s compelling
first novel.
