Surface

by Siddhartha Deb

A chilling novel where nothing is quite as it seems on the surface! Amrit is a reporter for the Sentinel, dispatched to 'the region' on the vaguest of assignments. Despite his initial reluctance, he is hopeful he may uncover enough of interest and intrigue to make the front page. And he has the perfect place to a photograph he's uncovered of a young woman, involved in pornography, taken captive by a shadowy insurgent group and paraded before the press as a lesson to others like her. 'Illusion and delusion, fronts and set-ups are riffs that run through this novel and Amrit's journey into the region turns out to be a metaphor for a remarkable voyage of self-discovery and self-realisation' --London Observer 'Deb has created his own impressively autonomous world . . . As the title suggests, nothing is as it seems in this book, and Deb brings the shadowy, almost dream-like 'region' to vivid life with specific and well-chosen physical details in this confidently imagined, cleverly constructed and finely written novel' --London Sunday Times

262 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2005

About the author

Siddhartha Deb is an Indian author who was educated in India and at Columbia University, US. Deb began his career in journalism as a sports journalist in Calcutta in 1994 before moving to Delhi to continue regular journalism.

Reviews

[David Grieve]

An intriguing story of a newspaper reporter sent to a remote, unidentified area of India to obtain local colour. His own objective is to follow up the story behind a photograph showing a porn film star and some insurgents from the area to which he has been sent. The story follows his attempts to find the woman in the picture and get to the truth behind the story, along with the people he meets on the way.

[Kumam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hindustan Times is right when it says SURFACE is "a book every Indian ought to read." This is indeed a book that will simplify an over-mystified but very less understood region. The book slowly unfolds the region's "mysteries" and "realities" beneath the surface.

Taking the cue of a real-life controversial incident of a woman (accused as porn star) killed (staged) by an insurgent group in Manipur years back the writer gradually unfolds the deeper political games and manipulations in practice there. It also explains how the politics in the state is overlapped with what happens in Nagaland, Burma and New Delhi. The book suggests that the politics is much more pluralistic in context and interconnected with different others.

An excellent journalistic fiction by a less known but extremely talented and well read writer. Siddhartha Deb has proved not only his flare for writing but also about his knowledge of the region.

[Sheela Lal · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful writing - the bits about kolkata reminded me of the film teen yaari katha. when amrit travels through the northeast, it isn't portrayed patronizingly. the politics aren't laid out systematically and the smaller stories effectively highlight the nuanced complexity of the situation in the north east.

would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a survey understanding of this part of the country

[Isha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Near the end, one of the characters in Siddhartha Deb’s Surface says, ‘To conceal surfaces under other surfaces is necessary’ and this is what the entire narrative is all about. Cloaked under layers and layers, this is the ultimate revelation that is dawned upon the reader – ‘projecting attractive images that concealed what lay behind’. Scratching one surface, the reader is immediately burdened with another surface, for surfaces are the only way to survive in the region where corruption run rampant, college graduate work as rickshaw drivers, individual disappears in a thin air and poverty swallows everyone.

Amrit Singh, a discontented reporter working in a dilapidated office of the Sentinel, in early 1990s lands himself an assignment to travel to one of the remotest regions in the country in search of the story of the girl whose photograph falls in his hands in the newspapers’ archives. Armed with nothing more than the photograph imprinted with an enigmatic caption, ‘The MORLS leadership today exhibited a porn film actress as an example and warning to the people of the state. They shot her as punishment to impress upon the people the importance of desisting from all corrupt activities encouraged by Indian imperialism …’, Amrit embarks on a journey to unravel the region that ‘had been forgotten by the world’ and to seek his own redemption.

What seems to be a simple assignment on the surface quickly turns into the journey to the murky world with the unholy alliance between the insurgents, businessmen, and army. Literally, a journey into the heart of darkness of modern India, Amrit finds conspiracy and deceit at every stage. Everything turns out to be an illusion and counterfeit.

A political thriller cum the coming-of-age story; the journey of Amrit to the remotest locations in the hinterland also becomes the journey in the search of the self, ‘Watching that extended twilight from my hotel room, I could feel a similar pause in myself, a suspension between entrapment and freedom where I became aware of my inner state of being.’

During his travels, Amrit encounters several stories and people that slowly unravel the ugly truths hidden beneath the alluring exteriors. While traveling into the hinterland, Amrit watches the neglect, the apathy, the poverty, the disintegration of the region closely. Though the larger plot is bound by the single story of Amrit’s search for ‘a portrait of the mystery and sorrow of India through the story of the woman in the photograph’, other narratives occupy a large part in the book; thus, creating a sense of dissonance. But maybe that is the only way to project the chaos that has engulfed the region.

The narrative resembles the confusion in the region itself with everyone looking for a piece of a cake: insurgents, government, military; leaving behind the common man who lives perpetually in the state of abject poverty and disarray. Another narrative that becomes interlaced with the main narrative is the Prosperity Project and its Director, Malik’s connection with the insurgent group, MORLS. The Prosperity Project attains the status of a legend in people’s memories but no one has actually seen it. Does it really exist or is it another surface hiding something ugly underneath? But what matters is not its existence but what it represents – hope. ‘It’s enough just to be aware that somewhere things have changed for the better, so we can hold it close to ourselves like a wonderful dream during our long nights…Who wants to look closer and find out that it’s not true?’

A bleak commentary on the socio-political conditions of the North-East, Surface constantly questions every narrative put forward in the book. The characters keep moving in and out which gives the sense to the reader that they are as peripheral to the story as the entire region is to the republic.

The novel is crammed with multiple stories which are often left in between, dramatic characters who are quickly forgotten; the only thing that remains constant is the obscurity and that is the ultimate reality that the author brings forth through the narrative. ‘It was a town dissolving bit by bit into a state of nothingness, crumbling into an ocean of absence, with each one of us in the town seceding in his or her own way from the blinding presence of the republic.’

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[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I folded more page corners to mark passages I wanted to flip back to in this book, than in any other book I've read.

[Ritwik Deshpande · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explores the darkest fringe of India with journalistic objectivity.