A Burning by Megha Majumdar
A story about "trial by media" and of the moral decisions we have to make to rise above our station.
“Where public feeling goes, the court follows. Freedom will result not from boxes of papers and fights over legality but from a national outcry.”
Reading this book made me crave for Indian food. In every scene, there’s always a housewife cooking dal, or a street vendor barking out today’s goods, or some event giving out chicken biryani. Wafts of Indian spices, onion, and fresh vegetables fill my head as I read page after page. Majumdar paints a vivid picture of food and domestic life in India against a backdrop of systemic corruption.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐5/5 stars
A Burning is a story of three characters whose lives are entangled after a tragic incident in India that killed hundreds of citizens. Jivan, a poor Muslim girl, is accused of collaborating a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless post on Facebook. She is dragged in the middle of the night by the police, forced to admit the accusation, and is sent to jail as she awaits trial. As news of her arrest spread, the people of India demand justice and are quick to judge Jivan without hearing her side of the story. What’s is worse is that the media feeds this rage. She devises a plan to work with a journalist to tell her own truth. She tells her past, her family’s poverty, and her dreams of not being rich, but at least being middle class. She tells her story of a cycle of poverty she wishes to get out of but now can’t do so because she is imprisoned.
The second character is Lovely who dreams to be a Bollywood star. She is the key to Jivan’s freedom but her testimony could be the end of her Bollywood dreams. Lovely’s compassionate testimony on behalf of Jivan draws the attention of people from the film industry and she starts getting auditions. However, in the end, she has to choose between supporting Jivan or pursuing her acting.
Lovely’s chapters are the ones I look forward the most. It’s funny and speaks of so much zest for life despite the discrimination she receives every day. Lovely is not a native English speaker so her chapters is written in a particular way Indians speak and write English. It’s written in present continuous form (verb + ing) which I think attributes to the way Hindi is translated into English. I can’t give an example because I don’t speak Hindi but as a non-native English speaker, I totally get this. It’s the way I follow my first language’s sentence structure and translate them in English in the same structure. It’s just the way it is. I love that the author wrote in that tone. It makes me feel that Lovely is always present in the moment that mirrors her personality. It makes the character distinct and the novel unique.
PT Sir, Jivan’s former PE teacher, seeks to rise to political power and whose final’s ascent to glory depends on Jivan’s fall. At the start of the book we read PT Sir reflections on his mundane, humdrum life. One day he joins a right wing political party rally, gets inspired, and thinks that this could be his way of rising above his station. He slowly becomes involved with the party and is given small tasks and is given small favors for these tasks. Little by little, he is drawn in to the systemic corruption prevalent not only in India, but many countries as well (like my own country lol). He faces moral dilemmas but relishes his new found power and social status.
The book is short (less than 300 pages) but it’s a heavy read with themes of injustice, discrimination, and systemic corruption.
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