"The Girl from Nongrim Hills" by Ankush Saikia
A novel about the North-East with a healthy dose of crime.
One reviewer of this book who hails from Shillong remarked that they always wondered growing up as to why more books were not written about their city. I would agree.
As a consumer of thrillers set in the West, I am more than familiar with the landscapes that don Stephen King’s Maine and James Patterson’s trusty suburban American cities. However, the Indian landscapes seldom get a mention, even as the likes of Ashwin Sanghi (and more recently Chetan Bhagat) try their hand to weave the Indian city as a character within thrillers.
This is where Saikia comes in and succeeds. Even though I have never been to Shillong, this book does give me an intimate taste of a city where one would be foolish to not carry an umbrella.
A True Indian Thriller
This book appears aptly scripted for an accomplished director to make into a decent Bollywood movie. While that may sound like a compliment, the oversaturated nature of the genre in the film industry and the fact that the novel was perhaps 30 pages longer than it ought to be doesn’t necessarily deem my words to be positive.
What I did enjoy about the book is how it gives us an unapologetic taste of the North-East of India, neither subscribing to stereotypes nor giving in to the temptation of romanticizing.
The characters are raw and filled in equal measure with life and liquor and one can relate to the landscape which is negotiating with a post-liberalization descent of the modern. In Bok’s Shillong, one finds a mature taste for music and questionable temperament of people. The corruption and nexus between crime and politics which has become synonymous with the dark underbelly of most Indian cities has its significant role in this tale too.
A Different North-East
I was fortunate to have my fair share of encounters with the North-East in the form of college classmates and now students. As such, the narrative of this novel does not catch me off-guard and in fact, has me agreeing on several counts about tiny details.
I am glad that Saikia goes with the route of a local narrating his own perspective rather than relying on the now formulaic “outsider describing the landscape” approach. In doing so, this novel has succeeded in demystifying an often-ignored part of India, albeit within the clichéd confines of a thriller.
Do read this book on your own to add some variety to the thrills and crimes in your fiction diet. Speaking of which, you can be a person from any hill or valley to show this newsletter some love. Do share this post and follow this newsletter for a different kind of thriller next time around.