Econ_Sep_22

76 Books and arts

The Economist

September 22nd 2018

nomic liberalisation was heralded by a

midnight shipment of gold, conveyed to

Bombay’s airport (and thence internation-

al markets) in a heavily armoured convoy

from the vaults of the Reserve Bank of In-

dia. In 1992 riots provoked by Hindu na-

tionalists killed more than 900 people,

mainly from the Muslimminority, in Bom-

bay’s slums. In response a Muslim crime

boss co-ordinated a series of bomb blasts

that killed 257 across the city. In turn Arun

Gawli, a Hindu don—and the model for

Gaitonde in “Sacred Games”—assumed

the mantle of avenger. The gangs them-

selves, until then as mixed as the denizens

of the film world, became segregated.

Bombay became Mumbai, ostensibly

named after a local Hindu goddess.

Its pavements were slick with blood

from daily gangland killings, plus the “en-

counters” in which the police became

adept: extra-judicial executions, cynically

presented as shoot-outs. These bad times

for the city were, for a while, a heyday for

killers and their bosses, and their trouba-

dours too. This was the world of “Satya”, a

brutal crime flick that was a hit in 1998.

Meenal Baghel, now the editor of the

Mumbai Mirror

, the city’s most-read tab-

loid, remembers catching the picture and

thinking that it “captured everything that

we put in the paper, every day.”

Anything can happen

If an act of terrorism inaugurated Mum-

bai’s mafia imperium, terrorist atrocities

ended it: first the attacks of September 11th

2001, then those ofNovember 2008, when

Pakistan-based guerrillas invaded Mum-

bai by boat and killed 164 people. New fi-

nancial controls and better policing even-

tually brought down the thugs’

gold-smuggling and extortion rackets (in

the globalised economy, there are better

ways to make money anyway). Even the

gangsters’ dance bars have been closed.

And these daysMumbai is no longer In-

dia’s sole gateway to the world. The new

rich live all over the country, as do the new

criminals. Delhi and Bangalore have

worsemurder rates; the police inUttar Pra-

desh are expert in “encounters”. Residual

scams, such as duping Americans into

making phoney tax payments from subur-

ban call centres, are much less cinematic.

The city’s film-makers have lost their pre-

eminence, just as the mobsters they chron-

icled have declined. Movies from other

parts of the country now rival Bollywood;

dubbing and subtitling are big business.

The underworld storyline of “Sacred

Games” is actually an anachronism. Still, it

may be for the best that the city that in-

spired the most fevered reimaginings has

gone, even if the art endures. As Gaitonde,

the gangster, growls to anyone with a

streaming device (inHindi, but subtitled in

more than 20 languages): “This is Mumbai

city. Anything can happen here.”

Polish fiction

Carnival of the animals

HE narrator of this offbeat whodun-

nit describes herself and her fellow

misfits as “the sort of peoplewhom the

world regards as useless”. Yet “Drive Your

PlowOver the Bones of the Dead” is a

warning not to underestimate the lowly.

Olga Tokarczuk, its Polish author, can

speak fromexperience. InMay shewon

theMan Booker International prize for

the English translation of another novel,

“Flights”. At the award ceremony, she

wore a pair of earrings she had bought

whileworking as a hotel chambermaid

in London. Today she is spoken of as a

future Nobel laureate.

Ms Tokarczuk’s forthright support for

feminism, ecological causes andminor-

ity rights has attracted thewrath of Polish

conservatives. Her fiction, however,

eschews overt advocacy. It draws on

fables, myths, evenmysticism, to conjure

its distinctivemoods. Whereas “Flights”

wove several plot-strands into a patch-

workmeditation on travel, exile and the

quest for home, “Drive Your Plow”

adopts—but subverts—amore conven-

tional genre. First published in Polish in

2009, the novel takes the formof amav-

erickmurder-mystery.

Its narrator, Janina Duszejko, is an

elderly semi-recluse. At first sight, she is

one of those “oldwomenwhowander

aroundwith their shopping-bags”, ig-

nored and patronised by (almost) every-

one. Janina lives in an upland area of

south-western Poland near the Czech

border: a backwaterwhere thewinter

snows convince her that “theworldwas

not created forMankind”. She looks after

holiday homes, fitfully teaches English,

and translatesWilliamBlake, the Roman-

tic poet whose visionarywords lendMs

Tokarczukher title and resonate through

the book.

Janina cherishes the local fauna and

detests the hunterswho slaughter the

creatureswith impunity, believing that

“if people behave brutally towards Ani-

mals, no formof democracy is ever going

to help them”. She onceworked as an

engineer, but casts horoscopes and re-

spects astrology as “solid knowledge”.

A series ofmysterious deaths disrupts

the backwoods idyll. The trigger-happy

slayers ofwildlife are themselves culled.

First “Big Foot”, a notorious poacher,

expires. Soon, bigger human game comes

messily to grief: a police chief, a fox-fur

farmer, a hunt-loving priest. Abigwig

known as “the President” dies, seemingly

“suffocated by cockchafers” after the ball

of theMushroomPickers’ Society.

Ms Tokarczukhas a ball of her own.

Sardonic humour and gothic plot-twists

add a layer ofmacabre rustic comedy.

Antonia Lloyd-Jones, an outstanding

Polish-English translator, sculpts Janina’s

English voice (completewith Blakean

capitalisations) with panache.

Sowho lies behind this “vengeance of

Animals”? The resolution feels perfunc-

tory; Ms Tokarczukdeploys a trick that

will be familiar to Agatha Christie fans.

Still, she knits satire and philosophywith

a deliciously droll touch. Much like Blake,

Janina imagines theworld as “a great big

net”. This “complexCosmos of corre-

spondences” meshes together “like a

Japanese car”. Human or animal, the

humbler links in the engine of lifewill

enjoy their bittersweet revenge.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the

Dead.

By Olga Tokarczuk. Translated by

Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

Fitzcarraldo Editions;

269 pages; £12.99