The Hush of the Uncaring Sea

by Upamanyu Chatterjee

English 352 pages 1 edition

An adolescent set adrift in the middle of the Bay of Bengal, surrounded by an immensity of empty sea and sky, seagulls waiting patiently to peck at his flesh, remembers a couplet his mother sang at bedtime, and finds himself murmuring it, with an unexpected gurgle of pleasure: To thank you, God, to you I pray / For the gift of this horrible day. A man, for long on the brink of hunger, is deranged by the rich smell of meat and kills a family of six and their dog. Another man, a magistrate who will not contemplate breakfast without eggs, sausages and liver, vows to turn vegetarian until justice has been done. A young could-have-been-engineer returns from America at the start of 1961, wanting to become, of all things, a private detective. No one gives him a chance, until he solves his first case—a kidnapping in, of all places, sleepy Patiala—and sets up India’s first detective agency. An Indian prince hatches a plot to blow up the British Resident, together with his old headmaster and bullying schoolmates when they get off the ship from England. But one incredibly obese fellow among them messes up his plans by becoming, first, a curiosity and then a minor god for the women of the kingdom. Upamanyu Chatterjee combines his legendary wry humour and genius for the absurd with perfectly-pitched storytelling to deliver a humdinger of a collection.