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There are incidents in our lives that change our attitude towards life and people. Such events rankle our conscience and force us to ask questions which we would not have otherwise. City of Fear is one such novel that narrates two incidents in Robin David’s life. They jolt the author from his reverie. He wakes up to face certain realities and does his best to ignore them but is caught in a vortex of emotions. He becomes a victim of circumstances. David, a journalist, is a resident of Gujarat, a state that was ravaged by a powerful earthquake in 2001 and then subjected to unprecedented violence in the form of riots in 2002. The spate of violence changed the relationship among people of different communities. The barber who had given umpteen haircuts to David as the latter grew up, shrugged away the usual banter that accompanied the haircut. His mother had allowed a friend to park his car that had broken down in their drive. A child had casually inquired, "Hai, Robinbhai, is this a Muslim car?" The author is shocked at his friend, Jayendrasinh Sisodiya, a professor of English at a local college who felt strongly for "collective punishment" and also prided himself on the rioters. David quotes his educated friend: "`85it is called collective punishment. Everyone has to suffer for the acts of a few. Only then will they learn a lesson." David belongs to a small Bene Israel Jewish community that has made India its home. The novel fluctuates from the real to reminisces of the author about his life. So as we read about the shattering of lives because of the earthquake, we also get acquainted with the Jewish community, in India as well as in Israel. The feeling one gets is that the rambling story meanders its way through the lives of various characters in the story, the author being one of them. He gingerly pokes fun at himself while conducting the rituals of his community. For him rituals are meaningless, for he does not know the meaning of the verses he is chanting. So 13 years after his grandpa’s death, he writes his own mourner’s Kaddish for his grandfather that holds more meaning and is more personal. He reflects the youth of today. David’s account of their old house is a fine contrast to the newly built apartments that have sprouted across the city. David paints the house for his readers with fine strokes. Amidst the account of his grandfather, the house and his personal life, the author takes us through the riot-stricken city. There is a feeling of mistrust among friends where strangers help each other without divulging their identity. Such people are sane in society but helpless with all the mayhem around them. It is these citizens who help keep the order in society, e.g., the stranger who gave a lift to the author’s mother when she was in distress. He helps her but zooms away when she inquires his name. David captures the mood of the mob very well. After the Godhra attack he writes, "The snake was hungry. It had not hunted for a while and looked frustrated that this little crumb it was hoping to prey on was not a Muslim. But it wanted to be doubly sure and inspected the crumb in detail." He further says, "After a while all the faces looked the same. As if there was just one man fragmented into a thousand faces and bodies." David and his mother are hounded by a fear that they can be mistaken for members of a minority community. So they decide to sell their house and move on to a safer locality. They manage to do so but realise that it is not easy to start life anew. The house has grown on them. His mother returns to the house while the author builds his life gradually in the new apartments that have no soul. The mother-son duo realises that it is not easy to cut off strings. "How were we to know then that we would carry a little bit of the riot with us everywhere we went even after people had stopped talking about the bloodshed?" The effort by the author is a noble one—conveying how values are tested in trying times. There is explicit use of abuses that unnerve you. The readership may be restricted because of the bare-all attitude of the author. One cannot recommend the book to one’s children but to readers who analyse.
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