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| Sunday, June 13, 2004 |
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| Sunday, June 13, 2004 |
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Refugees from Paradise
Jonathan, an actor living in London, is haunted by a story about the Second World War. An aircraft on a routine mission goes off course to rescue some civilians, following the vision of the co-pilot, only to crash into a thick forest in Assam. It is up to Jonathan to discover the link between what happened so long ago, and so far away, and himself. His search takes him to a village fair in Kenduli, Bengal, where he meets "150-year-old" Krishnagopal, a Baul singer, who is said to be the reincarnation of a legendary Sufi saint "Lalon Phakir." In a strange way, Jonathan’s path crosses Anjali Mehra’s, a television journalist from Delhi. Anjali, too, is searching for a link with the past. Fate leads her to an elusive grandfather, a glimpse of a mysterious grandmother, and finally to Krishnagopal, who shows her "everything she needs to know about the world". Then there is JJ, whose family had escaped from Prague to avoid persecution and who is still looking for answers through music. He finds a kindred soul in Alam, a Kashmiri, who plays the Santoor to forget the murder of his family by terrorists. Their search takes them across India, from Bengal to Kashmir to Manali, where they find some solace in the teachings of a Sufi guru. The book begins slowly enough, but quickly gains momentum till the fine line between reality and mysticism gets blurred and it is left to the reader to differentiate between the two. The heavy dose of "Eastern spirituality" puts to test the reader’s imaginative powers and adds an unnecessary burden on a book that already has a talking cat who is a reincarnation of a famous poet and at least three main characters with visionary powers. All this has been put in the backdrop of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre in America, which just makes the sum a little difficult to digest. Refugees from Paradise is like a good Indian "masala movie." It has all the major ingredients of mystery, intrigue, action, religion and romance. But again, like many Indian movies, it just might fail to go down well with the "audience". |
WHAT is paradise? Does it really exist and will we be
able to recognise it if we come across it? Refugees from Paradise searches
for these answers in a world where a "hole in the sky" can
offer a glimpse of eternity and stories lurk within stories, just
waiting to be discovered. The book is about the search for
identity that takes its characters across the globe and beyond, into a
world where time ceases to exist and the "sky arches gold over the
earth embracing its forests and seas, its villages and the cities."