Book Review: Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

´The police don´t care about us because we´re poor´.

In the last month of 2020 I tried to read - or rather say, to start reading - a couple of books that were not necessarily my usual cup of tea, but given the book blogging and publishing exposure, I was curious to find out by myself more about. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara was one of them (another one is American Dirt that hopefully will be able to finish and review tomorrow). 

To be honest, the book is not very out of my literary lane as I have a kind of weakness for djinn stories, but mostly those from the 1001 Nights or from the children stories or folktales with a certain anthropological interest. But novels for adults with djinn in the title I´m afraid not (not afraid of the djinns, by the way).

But behind the cover of a story with children detectives trying to trace the mysterious disappearance of their friends, neighbours and colleague-children and a short introduction about Mental the ghost there is a deeper social reality revealed: those of the poor, unattended children from India going missing - apparently one every single minute. Thus, the need to believe in ghosts: ´We need ghosts more than anyone else maybe, because we are railway-station boys without parents at homw. If we are still here, it´s only because we know how to summon ghosts at will´.

Those little children growing up in a basti - local word for slum - have dreams: they want to become a dancer, to work in a call center, to outperform at sport. Some need to work after school to support themselves and their families. Families that are usually abusive. They are going to schools were teachers are abusive and aggressive. Their houses smell sadness, like in the case of Bahadur, the first to disappear: ´Inside that home sadness sticks to me like a shirt damn with sweat on a hot summer´s day´. The children may innocently play with each other and even plan to find out why the children disappear and eventually what happened to them, but the society around them is boiling ethnic and religious conflict, with Hindu vs. Muslim narrative easily and randomly enforced. Journalists are corrupt and politicians can buy any soul. 

The story is told by children and it´s a perspective which saves the book from becoming a depressive account of dramatic social realities in India. Thus, their innocence and stubborness to fight against evil, including by assuming that a djinn, or a djinn patrol maybe knows exactly what happened with the missing children that may be safe after all.

For the adult reader though, it´s hard to deny the facts and the local Indian realities. How can one ignore the malignancy that such childhoods bring to adulthood? The cruelty of a world where children disappearances - for various tragic reasons - is not properly addressed is beyond words and you don´t have to have children to figure it out. Being a human may be just enough. 

The writing has many ups and downs and the narrative is unbalanced sometimes. I was not always impressed by the dialogues either. However, I was in awe for the skillful way in which the local ambiance was reconstructed, through the use of local, slang, wording - a glossary is available at the end of the book - as well as through suggestive realistic descriptions. For me, this aspect was one of the most significant gains of reading this book.

The author, Deepa Anappara, is a former journalist, whose social investigation brought here multiple awards. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was written as part of her MA dissertation and last year was shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature.   

Rating: 3 stars