Simon & Schuster, 2024.
Book Review by K.S.Loganathan
Megha Rao is a poet and performance artist from Kerala. This book is a young adult fantasy novel set in a college campus in the present day. It is about the friendship between the narrator Esai, an eighteen-year- old fresher at St.Margaret’s, a ninety- two-year-old institution in the outskirts of Bombay, and Firoza aka Scheherazade who faces the dark side of college life – campus bullying, rumor- mongering, staff highhandedness, student activism, and festivities, etc.
Megha Rao’s stylish prose, and her evident penchant for poetry, comes through in the novel. The book has elements of magical realism in the mysterious woods and the lake, which contains the spirit of Minaxi, a former student , and the tales surrounding her life and tragic drowning in the lake about two decades earlier. Esai is instantly drawn into the forbidden territory and attracted to the legend of Minaxi.
Scheherazade enters into a destructive relationship with Joshua, a student union member. In time she develops a fan following for her performance poetry sessions and runs a zine, “Our Bones in Your Throat”, an awkward title, dedicated to exposing the hocus pocus in the college affairs and administration. She becomes a stormy petrel in student activism, railing against the injustices in the system, and soon enough incurs the wrath of the establishment.
Esai, on the other hand, is conciliatory, helping out the student Chairwoman and daughter of the principal, Ira in many a tight situation, risking her friendship with Scheher. Some of the incidents are drawn from the author’s own experience as a student. The off-campus activities of the students expose the human weaknesses which will dog their adult lives – patterns of abusive behavior, and a desire to be popular at any cost.
There are numerous literary allusions and local myths that are touched upon in the novel, which can be somewhat distracting. The setting and the atmosphere are however immersive, and there is a sufficient level of mystery to keep the reader interested until the end.
P.S. Thanks to the author for organizing a review copy
2 Responses
Haven’t read a book on Indian college activism in a long time. As long as it isn’t too dark I can give this one a read.
Happy Reading!