Vanity Bagh--------pan macmillan
Inspired by the legend of Abu Hathim, aging don of Vanity Bagh,
Imran Jabbari and his friends form a gang called 5½ Men in their mohalla
of Vanity Bagh. They are hired to dispense a batch of stolen scooters
to different corners of the city; not until the city rocks with scooter
bombs does Imran realize that they have been involved in a terrorist
act.
One of the prime accused in the 11/11 serial blasts, Imran
is destined to live in captivity for the next fourteen years. He kills
time plotting jailbreak until he is assigned to the bookmaking section
of the prison. The new job equips him with a new facility: each time he
opens a book and stares at its blank pages, he sees them scribbled with
tales from Vanity Bagh. Imran thus traces the history of animosity
between Vanity Bagh, nicknamed Little Pakistan, and Mehendi, a Hindu
neighbourhood.
The solitude and reflection that characterize
Imran’s narrative is undercut by communal tension and a simmering
violence. Touched with a wistful small-town feeling in the midst of a
teeming city, Vanity Bagh is a darkly comic tale.