There’s Gunpowder in the Air by Manoranjan Byapari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first came to know of Manoranjan Byapari when I read about his famous autobiography "Interrogating my Chandal Life" in a newspaper. I was impressed reading about the struggles that he went through to reach where he has today.

Coming from a very humble background, perhaps the most inspiring thing about the author is that he could neither read or write well into his twenties. He was born in Bangladesh and his family migrated to West Bengal, India when he was barely three. He had a brief association with Naxals and during the Naxalite movement of 1970s in West Bengal, he was arrested and sent to jail. It was there that he taught himself to read and write. To earn a living he also took up various low paying jobs. It was when he used to pull a hand driven rickshaw that he had a chance encounter with famous writer Mahasweta Devi. She invited him to write for a journal and then there was no looking back for this writer.

Today, he is a prominent writer of Dalit literature and has written over dozen novels and many short stories as well as essays. He writes in Bengali. His autobiography "Interrogating my Chandal Life" as well as "There's Gunpowder in the Air" have been translated into English. The former won the prestigious Hindu Literary Prize for non-fiction whereas the latter i.e. this book has made it to shortlists for various awards including DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

The story of this novel seems to be drawn from his own experience as a prisoner in Jail in the 70s. What we have here is a Jail with some Naxal prisoners who plan to escape in order to contribute to the movement to fight against oppression of the state and landlords. But the narrative not only deals with their plot but also with the state of affairs in a Jail during that time, with the treatment of prisoners in general and also of those in dark cells. The reader also gets a peek into the psyche of both prisoners and policemen - how their actions are informed more by deprivation and how fear and anxiety can at times play with their minds. Written in third person using simple present, the narrative immediately catches a reader's attention for its tautness and vivid rendition.

The outcome at the end, is a chilling reminder of the brutality that is sometimes imposed cold heartedly due to an obligation and sometimes, to save one's face.

This book is a must read if you wish to delve closer into the lives of people living on the margins in society.



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