The foundation for this debut novel by Shazia Omar is her first-hand experience as an intern at a heroin rehabilitation centre. Like a Diamond in the Sky is a psychedelic foray into the mind and habitat of a drug addict. Deen is quiet, laidback, dashing and compassionate; his partner in crime, AJ, is impulsive, ruthless and fierce. Shazia effortlessly transports the reader to the busy heartland of Dhaka — a city of street urchins, beggars, vendors, scooter wallahs and goats. Everywhere there is bedlam, as though Deen’s 64,000 thoughts per day have echoed their permutations across the spectrum of his surroundings. Drug addiction terminology punctuate the book: the dead sea of the smackies, chasing, turquing.
The story is primarily Deen’s, a man of conscience, fertile imagination and an exaggerated sense of socio-political injustice. His life is shadowed by imbeciles like the underworld Don Raj Gopal and ruthless sidekicks, the drug source Falani, his bipolar girlfriend Maria and the defenceless Parvez. Deen’s thoughts reflect the misery he sees in his country “the sewer of India, the ass wipe of America, the sycophantic beggar child of Islamic fundamentalists.”
Shazia traverses through the opium of obsession and religion. The sea of believers chanting God’s name clutch on to a name. The Don in his mansion clutches on to power. Maria clings on to ideology and love. Deen and his college mates clutch on to drugs, alcohol and sex. There is no letting go and Deen’s despair becomes deeper — greed, fear, capitalism, boredom, institutions and treachery become the anthem of his existence. Rich kids enter basti territory, oblivious of highs and lows, with scratchy arms and bursting sinuses, waiting for the pipe, the drag and the tiny pariahs you could stash in your pockets. Deen is unhappy despite the mind-blowing sex he has with Maria. His relationship is more like his highs and lows with the big H: heroin. There is always a promise that has to be broken. Deen is alienated from his family, his mundane student life and society in general; most of all he is alienated from life.
The edgy cinemascope narrative makes easy reading, and the reader feels the junky ‘hits’. Take the Doo doo doo Mission Impossible ring-tone interrupting the narrative or the brilliantly executed Ping-Pong dialogue between Deen and Parvez. Or the Dha-Dhin beats of Sundari the dancer and AJ’s corresponding jealous thoughts. Dhaka comes alive in flashes of brilliance when “the blind boy, armless man, stub man with no limbs” erupt onto the chaotic streets. Twenty-one times, Deen counts, phrases of beggar speak comprising solely of “I’m poor, I’m hungry Bhaiya…please give me money.”
The only force that drives Deen’s universe is his desire — the intense desire for food, money, sex and highs. Deen’s failure isn’t his own — he lives in a needy country where wealth belongs to a select few, most of whom are corrupt. A voice of reason comes with the detective, but is shattered by the likes of Sergeant Akbar. Shazia vacillates from addiction to criminal poverty; depicts addiction as inhumane and self-demeaning. Yet she delineates vertigo-induced acid-sedated youth with a touch of humanity and compassion. Her book has the flair of an uncut gem, gleaming in flashes. A little more polishing could have made a real diamond out of Shazia’s fresh insight into an otherwise misunderstood reality.
—The writer is a freelance journalist based in
Bangalore. govardhini9@yahoo.co.in