My story may end with sadness, but I want you to remember that it started with love.
Mumbai has moved on now. It doesn’t think about 1992 or 1993 because it doesn’t want to. People in big cities like to think that the past is not as important as the future. But the past doesn’t just disappear.’
Mumbai, in the early 90s. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement is at its peak, and the Babri Masjid has just fallen. Decades later, in a corner of the metropolis, a retired postman living alone in a dilapidated room tries to recall those months of madness and how they changed everyone he knew.
This is the story of Rameshwar Shinde and Ravinarayan Kumar, a young woman called Janaki, and the neighbours they live with, in the shadows of towers. It is a story of families torn apart by bigotry, an unmissable retelling of the epic Ramayana set at a time when blood mixed with the grime of Mumbai’s streets. A tale more pertinent than ever, in a country once again teetering on the edge.
About The Author
Lindsay Pereira is a journalist and editor. Born and raised in Bombay, he studied at St Xavier’s College and the University of Mumbai and holds a PhD in literature for his work on gender attitudes implicit in nineteenth-century Indian fiction. He was co-editor with the late Eunice de Souza of Women’s Voices: Selections from Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Indian Writing in English, published by Oxford University Press.
