Anita Desai, 'In Custody'
Anita Desai, 'In Custody'
Vintage | ISBN: 0749394110 | 1999 | PDF | 234 pages | 2.89 MB
Deven, a lecturer in an obscure college in Mirpore, gets the opportunity to go interview his hero Nur, the greatest living Urdu poet. Having always loved Urdu poetry and missed the chance to be an Urdu language professor, he is charmed into going to Delhi the big city. Even though he shrinks at the idea of possibly being exploited by his sharp and selfish friend Murad, the dream of meeting Nur draws him on. So he sets off on a number of adventures on Sundays, the one free day that he should have spent with his wife and son.
What Deven finds at his hero's house is misery and confusion. Having sunk into a senile old age, surrounded by fawning sycophants, married to a younger calculating wife who wants to use his glory to win herself fame, Nur is not what he once was. Or perhaps he always was this.
'In Custody is Anita Desai's most subtle and mature work to date…She retains an unforced and powerful ease in conveying the colour and sounds and sensations of Indian life.' - Times Literary Supplement