Title: A City of Incident: A Novel in Twelve
Parts
Author: Annie Zaidi
Publisher: Aleph Book Company
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 145
‘Now, he likes to say that he
was born free. Free! At least, he was not wrapped in a black plastic bag,
knotted tight so that he would chock to death before being discovered by some
rag-picker like himself. At least, his mother gave him a chance to live. Who knows?
Maybe she had even wanted him to live.’
City of Incident by Annie
Zaidi, is an entrancing novel in twelve parts – interlaced characters and interlinked
lives – sets in Mumbai: An infectious city that stands on dreams, its each
corner depicts a facet of character; every street hides an enigma of life.
City of Incident is an intimate
portrait photograph of the ordinary people, yet it tells stories in the most
extraordinary way. The basic plot breathes on longing, solitude, and desire –
more than that it illustrates the feeling of being dumped, as you are not a
legitimate child, feeling of being left alone cause an unsolved puzzle exists between
unmarried girl and the unborn, feeling of being paralytic as too much alone
time in one’s hand that sits like a heavy-limbed beast – sits on the chest.
City of Incident is a
documentation of complexities of everyday life. With flawed and unsound
characters, author depicts an unconventional observation, for instance, ‘There
is something to his posturing, the languor of his backside as he stands on the
footboard, one knee bent, the wind in his hair, and his rifle standing in the
corner.’ Have you noticed the style of prose? Exactly. It absorbed me the most – crisp sentences
with clear perspective – minimal words, short paragraphs as if author wants you
to experience the scene without any cacophony and that too intentionally.
City of Incident speaks about
the dynamics of relationship and its corrosive nature, how it takes shape and vanishes.
Each section is pretty amazing, still would love to mention two most adored
titles - ‘A Beggar recalls babies in plastic bags and makes furtive love’ and
the other one is ‘A bank teller sees a happy baby on the street, and wants to
die’ – apart from that, you get a glimpse of few troublesome happenings in a
train. It begins with a security guard, and touches various
slices including the struggles of a working class woman in a so-called sophisticated
city, underprivileged society and patriarchy.
Annie Zaidi is a much needed
voice of Indian literature. I wish more readers could get their hands on this
stunning novel.
‘So many accidents happen these
days. But that word ̶ accident ̶ it belongs to the vocabulary of innocent. For him,
there are only incidents. Some incidents are followed by investigations, which
are followed by pleadings, cautionings, offerings. A link chain of unfolding
incident. What was that old song? This city is a city of incident. Yes, that’s
just what it is.’
About the Author
Annie Zaidi is the author of Gulab, Love
Stories # 1–14, and Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales which
was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Prize (non-fiction). She is the editor
of Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian Women’s Writing. She won The Hindu
Playwright Award in 2018 for her play Untitled 1 and the Nine Dots
prize in 2019 for her essay ‘Bread, Cement, Cactus’. Her novel Prelude to
a Riot won the TATA Literature Live! Book of the Year Award—Fiction in
2020.
P.S. Thank you Vivek Tejuja for
sending the review copy in an exchange of unbiased review.