CHENNAI: Saira Zariwala is afraid. And you would be too, if your new phone took you on a thrilling and life-threatening adventure in search of its previous owner. Shabnam Minwalla’s mid-pandemic release is a tale plucked right out of a parent’s worst nightmare, a combination of all of their exaggerated hypotheticals.
We experience the story through the eyes of 15-year-old Saira whose excitement for receiving a new phone soon dissolves into long nights of anxiety, when she is relentlessly spammed with calls and messages for Akaash, the previous owner. Giving in to her inquisitiveness, the Mumbaikar embarks on a journey to decode the mystery of this elusive Akaash and eventually, finds herself at the intersection of several fragmented connections — a fatal fire at a posh Andheri building, a high-profile Bollywood circle, and a distressed Priya maami, while another threat closes in. The detective work does not endow any leniency from her school that she must handle alongside.
The wild ride of the plot, interestingly, finds its foundation in reality. Shabnam, the mother of three daughters, came up with the idea when one of her daughters’ new phone invited a slew of messages for a person named Vishesh and even a call from a miserable Priya maami a few years ago. The messages (yet to be demystified) still ping in sometimes. “I even tried to Google Vishesh but there was no trace of him. I thought it would make an interesting beginning for a story. But I only had the beginning, so I started writing and the story developed bit by bit,” she shares. She also weaves in her husband’s attempt at getting a number that spelled his daughter’s name; a sweet addition.
As a resident of Mumbai, Shabnam excels at building an authentic atmosphere of a Dadar residential society, an image you can see, hear, smell and taste. The rooms are slightly crooked, the walls are thick and the nights are alive with the groans of ageing, arthritic beams and columns. Her description of dimmed staircases, loud streetside cricket commentary and tea-drinking comrades, and packed market-filled streets transports you to the hustle-bustle of the city of dreams.
This stays consistent, with the details mentioned about Saira’s school, her best friend Tia’s house, and the ‘it’ nightclub The Funhouse; every location an intricate construction. “I lived in Dadar for 10 years. The building I described is very much like the one I grew up in. I think if you live somewhere, the smells, the sounds come to you easily,” she shares. Apart from the larger settings, Shabnam manages to include small references that add to the flavour of the plot. From Saira’s reading of Rebecca amidst a haunted scenario of her own to ‘I’ll be watching you’ playing at uncomfortable moments, there are many parallels (although I refuse to believe that anyone in the world, no matter their age, dislikes Thriller by Michael Jackson as Saira does in the book).
Where the book falters for me is the dialogue that seems more like an attempt to mimic a teenager than embody one. Potentially interesting scenes were disrupted by phrases like “Eeps with whipped cream and choccy sauce on top!” and “Yikes! Actually yikes with coloured sprinklies on top” that unravelled my immersion. Text slang and words that are often used ironically by the younger generation were presented as a candid conversation — yummilicious, obvio, for instance — and took away from the, at times, genuinely captivating plotline. According to Shabnam, the teenage culture represented is an observation of her teenage daughters’ behaviour, so I will give it the benefit of the doubt. But it definitely took me some time to ignore the naive language, especially as it was paired with extremely poetic words when it came to the characters’ thoughts.
All in all, the plot is interesting enough to keep you hooked if you can accept the dialogue. It presents the two sides of technology — the dangerous and the informative — as Saira and her friends use laptops, social media, phones to solve a problem aroused from the same technology. But was the twist worth it? I guess that’s for you to decide.
Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Books Price: Rs 299 l Pages: 352