Inside Burn: A Novel

by Sanjay Bahadur

English 256 pages 1 edition

At an intersection in a city somewhere in northern India, it is an ordinary morning. A young boy peddles pirated books; his sister, two infants by her side, offers wilted flowers to unwilling customers; an old ice-cream vendor looks forward to some extra earnings under the hot sun; at a cafe nearby, a bunch of students celebrates a graduation; a group of mechanics prepares for afternoon prayers on the pavement; local shopkeepers play loud bhajans to announce a feast for the needy; a police van idles by the roadside; a young woman in a luxury car grows impatient with her clients and their demands; and traffic that has come to a standstill slowly begins to start up … Then, in the blink of an eye, everything changes. As the street descends into a vortex of vengeance and retribution, the unfolding events make victims and perpetrators, observers and participants, of them all. Searing, intense and superbly crafted, Inside Burn explores the anatomy of a spontaneous riot, exposing the absurdity of intolerance and celebrating, in the end, the core of the human spirit.