If there's one book you read this year, this is the one! Evocative, scintillating writing, gripping story, memorable characters, this book is an absolute gem.
Powerful Thematic Explorations
A dystopian story of a middle-class family seeking immigration, and a impoverished family displaced from their habitat, A Guardian and A Thief by celebrated young aithor, Megha Majumdar, weaves the complexity of a not- so distant future where resources will be in the control of a select few.
The city of Kolkata of maybe 20 years ahead will look like the one described in the story. Clinging to the shreds of humanism and decency, while being sucked dry by capitalists and administration.
You start reading about a woman fiercely protecting her toddler and aged father from hunger and scarcity. They plan to leave to the golden land of plenty - America, where the husband works. The precious visas are made, everything packed, when disaster strikes.
On the other end of the spectrum is Boomba, barely out of his teens, struggling to make ends meet and find shelter for his displaced family. He has seen the woman flinch essentials from a shelter and he wants to get even. In the ensuing struggle for survival, humanity takes a backseat, morals are crushed and animal instincts rule.
Sheer Linguistic Artistry
The writing is immensely evocative. You can see all of it before your eyes. The crumbling city of Kolkata - with its warts and ugliness, its genteel sheild covering people's frustration, the last shreds of human decency surviving its cruel realities, all of it is laid bare. The marshes of Sunderbans, swelling and swallowing, come alive, making you root for Boomba's family.
And how starkly she conveys climate change! The sweltering heat clamps on humans and animals, withering all flora, shrivelling foliage and food. It's a future we are staring at, given the environmental destruction we have allowed. As an ecological dystopian story, the book works very well, driving home the urgency of nature conservation and climate repair.
I found myself getting overwhelmed and emotionally shattered at several places. Don't remember last when a book affected me so much!
Minor Drawbacks
The ending! It wasn't fair, wasn't poetically justified. One was expecting a grim ending, but this is simply too much to take. And very uncalled for.
One more thing that rankled was why was the lady lying to her husband? What was the wall between them that she couldn't confide what had happened in reality? When everything was breaking around her, why keep up the pretense? Didn't make sense at all.
Conclusion
Still, this book goes into my list of all-time favourites. Megha Majumdar, take a bow! Lovers of literature and sociology, environment, science will relate so much to the book.
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