Journeying into ‘Djinndom’

Journeying into ‘Djinndom’

It’s a parallel and enchanting world of ifrits, marids, ghuls and nephilims that charms and attracts us

Bangladeshi author Saad Z Hossain’s much-acclaimed debut novel Escape from Baghdad was a war satire set in Iraq. It is followed by Djinn City, which is set in Dhaka. In this book, 10-year-old Indelbed—a lonely, motherless boy—lives with his father, Dr Kaikobad, in a decaying mansion.

“The first persistent conviction of Indelbed’s life was that he was poor. This was not in itself a surprising observation, for he was surrounded by the poor in a country notorious for being poor.”
When Kaikobad, who is eccentric as well as alcoholic, does not wake up from a drunken stupor, it turns out that he has been attacked by djinns who have declared a minor-hunt on Indelbed. The boy, a hybrid, as his mother was a pureblood djinn, is now in grave danger.

He is sent by his relatives to a safe place from where he disappears. While the rest of his extended family—the powerful and wealthy Khan Rehmans—are inclined to leave the matter alone, an older cousin Rais—a wise-cracking layabout—is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious vanishing. Thus begins the journey, through three distinct storylines—of Indelbed, Kaikobad and Rais—into the parallel world of ifrits, marids, ghuls and nephilims.

Djinndom is ruled by an ancient lore that, like dharma, is a result of culture, tradition, expectation and history; a djinn’s worth is determined by his dignitas, a measure of his credibility, and his auctoritas, an estimate of his sphere of influence. While all djinns believe that they are superior to the human race (humes), they are divided about whether they should destroy mankind, by engineering natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, or live with it in peaceful coexistence.

Many of us humes may not know much Islam-associated mythology but, thanks to Aladdin (and Christina Aguilera), nearly everyone knows that genies are best confined to bottles and lamps, as they have humungous magical powers. Just as impressive as these powers are Hossain’s storytelling skills, exemplified, in this weird, wild mélange of genres—mythology, fantasy, parody, dark comedy.
Packaging plots of the journey—adventure-quest-escape ilk, the no-frills writing style has a pace to match. It is confident, racy, light-hearted, but also cluttered with locations, events and characters.

Perhaps, it is this focus on pure entertainment that is both a positive and a negative for the narrative. The characters are interesting but remain superficial. The reader is sympathetic to Indelbed, and warms to the likes of Rais and Barabas, the patron djinn of the Khan Rehmans, who first appears, in a Gloria Jeans café, as “…a giant mullah in sandals and a sweat-stained shalwar, beard and hair dyed red, and fingers full of multicoloured rings.”

However, being subservient to the interests of multiple plotlines, even these main characters remain undeveloped and somewhat played down, though they go through fascinating and intensely challenging situations.

By the time the reader emerges through the complex maze that is this 450-page read, s/he is likely to have run the gamut of emotions from amused to befuddled to exasperated, and, finally, relieved. If you are looking for a zany holiday read the book delivers, but from someone with Hossain’s gifts, one is certainly tempted to look for more.

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The New Indian Express
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