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The Battle for No. 19
After a visit to Fatehpur Sikri and the Taj Mahal, the party enters Delhi. While the teachers have gone to the chemist, a group of men throws a petrol bomb at the jeep. Driving through the empty streets of Delhi in order to get the girls to safety, Kartar Singh is killed in a gruesome manner by a mob chanting khoon ka badla khoon. The girls creep out of the jeep and make their way to a nearby house and take refuge there. What has happened to drive a sane city to madness? The girls gain entry into the house after breaking a few panes and find the house tastefully furnished. There is no sign of the owners anywhere. The writer has an eye for detail as he describes the elaborate decor of the house. Switching on the television, the girls learn that the lady Prime Minister has been shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards and anti-Sikh riots have spread throughout the Capital. The novel is contemporary and the language is simple. The writer has aptly caught the curiosity of the girls who are eager to know about the house owners and their whereabouts. Searching the rooms for any clues, the girls come across a photograph of a Sikh family posing in the driveway of the house. The house belongs to a Sikh family! Keeping abreast with the news the girls learn that Sikh families and houses are being targeted by rioters. The girls assume that even their refuge may be a target. Using their artistic skills the girls alter the Sikh name on the nameplate outside the house to a Tamilian one. As thought by the damsels in distress, rioters come to the house fully armed but go away on seeing the nameplate. The writer dwells on the mob mentality and through storytelling keeps the readers hooked. The old has masterfully been blended with the new. Curfew has been imposed in the city and the smell of death and fear fills the air. The teenagers away from home`A0in a strange city face the circumstances bravely. The camaraderie between the girls has been dealt with beautifully and the dialogues have touches of humour. The girls find some food missing from the refrigerator. There is some one in house besides them! They soon discover`A0Jogi and Simi, the children of the Sodhis who own the house. The children have been hiding, too, and their parents seem to be away. The rioters visit the house again asking for Sodhi Sahib, the owner of the house. The girls outwit them as one of them answers in Tamil. The rioters are suspicious about`A0the occupants of House No. 19 and it soon becomes the target of the mobsters. The survival instincts of the girls make them plan to get help. Jogi, the Sodhi’s son, is made to dress up as a girl so that he can accompany one of the girls and get help. The rioters pay another visit to the house and find their suspicions to be true. The mob attacks the house and the girls battle it out with the mob. The girls are not as harmless as they seem. They fight tooth and eye with the mob. Meanwhile, the Army has been called out in the city to restore life back to normalcy. In House No. 19, a lot of drama and action follows before the children are united with their families. The`A0adventurous group of youngsters uses archery, hot water, masks and other means at their disposal to save themselves. Though teen fiction, this novel chronicles the 1984 riots. The writer has dealt with the riots in a very sensitive manner. The fear felt by the characters is transferred to the readers too. The book has a good plot and is a good read.
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group of eight girls leaves a hilly hometown to enjoy an educational
trip to Agra and Delhi. They are accompanied by their teachers Aruna Ma’am
and Miss Macaw. Aruna Ma’am has a no-nonsense attitude and does not
take no for an answer while Miss Macaw is her second-in-command, usually
dressed in strikingly coloured salwar-kameezes. The entire party
is travelling in a jeep driven by a jovial Kartar Singh, a Sikh with
twinkling eyes and a Santa Claus beard.