Girded by brilliant storytelling and flowing with gripping prose, in “You Beneath Your Skin”, Biswas weaves together epic themes of a mother’s love, seeking justice where there is none, gaining understanding for autism, dark power politics, and the acid evil of exploiting the poor.
Importantly, Biswas’ writing emanates from her actual work amongst the vulnerable in Delhi.
The novel brings the reader straight from the upper class enclaves of Delhi to its sordid slums, which are disconcertingly located cheek to jowl in that crowded land.
Tragically, it shows how those who try to help those most vulnerable, put themselves squarely in the line of attack because they have disrupted crucial flows of power and money.
The acrid smell of the slums she describes is paralleled by the bitterness of each event that unfolds.
Biswas’ mastery of her craft is displayed in the fact the incidents are as believable as they are dramatic.
The female protagonist is a flawed heroine, extremely human at every turn. Whilst we wonder at her folly and blind spots, we can also totally understand how her mother’s heart and need for love obscures better judgement.
We learn that much of what she believed of her life was premised on a lie, and later, she is almost allowed to believe in another lie, which would have forever scarred her internally. But Biswas skilfully crafts the plot such that a realistic measure of justice and mental liberation are accorded to her.
The male protagonist’s character develops powerfully as the story progresses, and the reader is drawn deeper and deeper into sympathy with him. This is largely because even as he becomes increasingly aware that he had created the monster who wrecks all their lives, he takes responsibility for it and tries to swerve from the path of compromise that he had taken for too long.
Softness and warmth had disappeared from Jatin’s days. He felt the cold, hard edges of his marriage breaking. Maya’s hurt, brittle and dangerous, like cracked glass. And Anjali, lying burnt on white hospital sheets.
He stared at the Delhi map on the wall in his office, and at the four red dots he’d marked on it: Pul Bangash, Madipur Colony, Dilshaad Gardens, and Sanjay Colony. At 10.30 pm, after a bunch of painkillers for his throbbing shoulder and more cups of black coffee than he cared to count, the city on the map appeared to him more of a maze than ever.
A hopeless crisscrossing of roads, train tracks above and below ground, alleys, footpaths, flyovers, malls, marketplaces, slums, old monuments, and new office buildings all jostling for space, just like the eighteen million humans who inhabited it. Like ants, but with none of the organisation of an ant colony.
All the years of investigating crimes hadn’t prepared Jatin for this collapsing together of his personal and professional life. He had tried to keep them as separate as he could, given that he was married to his boss’s daughter, but that had ended after his showdown with Drishti.
Excerpt from You Beneath Your Skin by Damyanti Biswas
Biswas draws together a motley cast of characters who leap from the page – each in turn charming, villainous, earnest, conflicted.
It hit me that whilst India still carries out some of the most misogynistic practices in the world (such as bride burning), Indian women are also some of the bravest in the world – speaking out against such practices when the danger to themselves is greatest, as well as starting movements to change things for many future generations of Indian women.
Perhaps it is when people live amongst the worst crimes that the strongest sense of injustice is felt, which then gives birth to the bravest fighters.
All in all, this is not just a well-written novel, or even just an important work of fiction. It brings the stories of those who have no voice, to a world out there who must listen.
When our disillusioned and jaded selves tell us that nothing can be done, nothing will every change, and to just avert our eyes, those like Biswas remind us that we can and must do something.
Whether it is funding the organisations that seek to educate and save slum children from evil fates, or in advocating for widespread and permanent legislation against treating women like disposable commodities, or in speaking up against the caste system so that its wickedness can be eradicated within our lifetime, this book is a call to action.
And act we must, for whether in Delhi or Singapore, in China or Ukraine, we share a common humanity, for we are made in the image of God and must not let evil prevail.
About the author:
Damyanti Biswas lives in Singapore, and works with Delhi’s underprivileged children as part of Project Why, a charity that promotes education and social enhancement in underprivileged communities. Her short stories have been published in magazines in the US, UK, and Asia, and she helps edit the Forge Literary Magazine.
Note: I was sent an electronic version of this book for this review. You may purchase a physical or e-book from Amazon via this link. All the author proceeds will go to Project WHY and Stop Acid Attacks.
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