Review of DJINN PATROL ON THE PURPLE LINE by Deepa Anappara (New Release)

4 Stars

Nine-year-old Jai lives with his parents and older sister Runu in an Indian basti (slum).  When a classmate goes missing, Jai recruits his friends Pari and Faiz to become detectives to help find the missing boy. Jai is addicted to television crime shows and feels he has picked up crime-solving skills which he hopes to put to use.  What starts as a game becomes more serious as more children disappear.  The police seem indifferent though the community becomes more concerned.  As a result, tensions within the basti arise and, because the missing children are Hindu, Muslim residents are blamed.

Jai is the first-person narrator.  It is interesting to have a child’s perspective on the events.  Because of his age, Jai is naïve and somewhat confused and so not always totally aware of the horror that is happening around him.  Of course, as events touch him more personally, his innocence is taken from him.  Jai has both Hindu and Muslim friends so his open-mindedness contrasts the opinions of many of the adults in his neighbourhood.

Interspersed throughout are chapters giving the point of view of each of the children who disappears.  We learn about their daily struggles and their dreams.  What they all have in common is a hope for a better life than the one they are currently living in the basti.

The characterization of Jai is very realistic.  He is a very convincing young boy.  He is over-confident and so over-estimates his skills as a detective.  He lacks maturity so often asks awkward or insensitive questions and finds it difficult to accept that his friend Pari asks better questions than he does; after all, she is a girl.  He is rather lazy and easily distractible.  He is self-centred; though his parents worry about both Jai and Runu, Jai prays only for himself:  “Please God, don’t let me be kidnapped or murdered or djinned.”  Through the course of the novel, events force Jai to mature; he realizes his shortcomings and becomes less focused on self. 

This book takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster.  It begins slowly and seems rather light-hearted.  The three children play a game at being detectives.  Pari’s constant overshadowing of Jai as an investigator adds humour.  Of course, suspense is gradually ramped up as more and more children go missing.  As the novel progresses, a reader would have to be unfeeling not to be almost overwhelmed by sadness and anger. 

The portrayal of life in the slums seems very realistic.  People live in one-room shacks and though both of Jai’s parents have full-time jobs, he often grows hungry:  “I find a twig that I can chew to fool my tummy into thinking more food is on its way.”  The slum dwellers live under constant threat of having their homes destroyed; they fear going to the police or protesting police inaction because by drawing attention to themselves, they risk authorities demolishing the entire basti.

The lives of the poor are contrasted with those of the rich, the “hi-fi” people.  The wealthy have all the power; one man accuses a policeman, “’you are suspicious of maids and carpenters and plumbers, but when you see a hi-fi madam or sir, you bow your head and jump out of the way.’”  The plight of the poor is just seen as an inconvenience by the rich.  For example, when a woman’s daughter goes missing, she calls her employer to ask for two days off and the employer responds, “’Should I find a new bai to do your job?  Your daughter must have run off with a boy.  I heard it’s happening a lot in your area.’” 

Not only is there inequality between the rich and the poor but also between genders.  Girls' lives are especially difficult.  Khadifa, a young girl, bemoans how she must always look after her brother Kabir.  Their mother “had sent Kabir out to buy a packet of milk in the evening, and then Khadifa to bring him back when he didn’t return a couple of hours later.  No matter that Khadifa had friends to talk to, and sewing to complete.  Each time Kabir misbehaved, it fell on Khadifa to set things right.  How was that fair?”  Their mother is pregnant and Khadifa fears, “The new baby brother would probably be a rogue too, just like Kabir.  All of Khadifa’s time would go in chasing after these brats; she wouldn’t have a minute to try on a new nail polish or a hairband at a friend’s house.”  She covers for her brother because she fears their parents “would pack him off to the village where their grandparents lived, and no doubt assign Khadifa the position of his minder. . . . the mullah [in this village] said girls should be married off before they turned too old, and his too-old was thirteen or fourteen.  Kabir would lose nothing if they moved to the village, and Khadifa would lose everything.” 

Runu thinks of how Jai has daydreams and the self-confidence “that the world granted boys (which, in girls, was considered a character flaw or evidence of a dismal upbringing).”  Runu feels “she existed solely to care for her brother, and the house.  Afterward, she would similarly look after her husband, her hands smelling of cow-dung cakes.  Her own dreams were inconsequential.”

The author explores an important issue:  “As many as 180 children are said to go missing in India every day.”  The novel shows the effect these disappearances have on the families, families which are already marginalized.  The result is a book that is both thought-provoking and heart-breaking.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.