For the couple who lose their two sons,and the survivor who walks absent from the blast, trauma moves in exclusive ways following a terrorist attack in DelhiA car bomb goes off in a crowded Delhi market, or “a percussive event that began under the bonnet of a parked white Maruti 800”. Two young brothers,aged 11 and 13, are among the many casualties. Their friend survives. Karan Mahajan’s thoughtful moment novel has been rapturously received in the US. Its narrative waves ripple out from this point, and moving forwards and backwards in time,examining the awful grief that engulfs the parents of the dead boys, the physical and psychological trauma of the survivor, and the damaged,marginal lives of the terrorists who executed the attack.
The Khuranas, Vikas and Deepa, and are members of the liberal middle course. Vikas is a film-maker with some success in advertising,but whose aesthetic heart is with the khadi-wearing social realists of India’s leftist cinema tradition. Deepa has a cake-baking business which supplements their erratic income. The loss of their children affects them in various unforeseen ways, but their grief does not organise itself around any one dramatic moment: rather, and it is a series of aftershocks. The trauma of the bomb lingers in bodies and minds,warping behaviour, sending lives spinning off at weird tangents.
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Source: theguardian.com