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The Hundred Names of
Darkness Welcome to Nilanjana Roy's delightful, yet
complicated, cat world where every clan has a distinctive
characteristic depending on the surroundings it lives in, where there
is wisdom to cultivate, rules to follow, battles to fight… Unlike
its prequel, The Wildings, in The Hundred Names of Darkness,
the battle is not a clear-cut one between the Nizamuddin clan and
some bunch of feral cats. This time the threat comes from a source
much higher — Bigfeet and their mindless exploitation of natural
resources. Pushed to a marginal existence with little food and even
little space to move around, the clan has no other option but to shift
base. So, it's natural that Mara, being the sender of the clan, has
to shoulder the responsibility of finding them a place and helping
them to relocate. Mara proves her mettle by forming a network of five
other senders from different clans and guiding the Nizamuddin team
through the complex maze of Delhi roads, finally to lead them to the
Golf Course, their new home. Claiming a new home is never easy,
especially, if the place is infested by thousands of bandicoots. A
battle ensues between the marsupials and the famished hunters. Roy
gives no gory details of the bloodshed. There are no magical
appearances of larger-than-life characters and the reader has to be
content with a linear fight between the predator and the prey. Roy
makes up with humour , be it the names of her characters — Doginder
Singh, a rescue dog, who does not mind a spot of fast food from the
dustbins rather than hunting, Noah Mor, a peacock who died when hit by
a golf ball. There are eccentricities of Kooky the koel who thinks
whoever, be it peacock or a Bigfeet, comes near her is in love with
her or Hatch, short for Hatchet, who shrugs off everything with a
nonchalant "whatever", even when he is asked by his parents
to be a cheel and fly rather than just keep hopping on the
ground. The curiosity about cats aroused with Roy’s first book, has
been sustained in this sequel too. When Mara gets a
"sending" from her young one, Monsoon, telling her where she
is, one wonders if Monsoon’s story will be as engrossing as Mara’s.
Only time will tell.
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The unsure meep has
turned into a confident meow. Mara, the abandoned kitten blessed with
an extraordinary "sending" power, has come a long way from
being a helpless baby trying hard to get a grip on her communicative
whiskers to a young queen who dares to venture out of her adopted home
and claim her clan, an eclectic bunch of cats, popularly known as the
Nizamuddin clan.