Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line begins with a warm, persuasive little story where rays of hope briefly cut through the bl...
Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line begins with a warm, persuasive little story where rays of hope briefly cut through the blackness of despair: a man named Mental, who employed and was kind to rag-picker boys when he was alive, continues to look out for them after his death. Quietly haunting, this tale – if taken at face value – suggests that the novel will have supernatural elements in it.
This question will also be raised during the main narrative, told in the voice of nine-year-old Jai, living in a basti with his impoverished parents (who work for rich, “hi-fi” people) and his elder sister Runu-didi, who wants to be a champion runner.
Right at the beginning, Jai tells us he imagines a djinn crouching on the tin roof of their little house, looking at the family through a hole. “Djinns aren’t real,” he then quickly adds, but throughout Djinn Patrol we are invited to think about the possibility of otherworldly beings: good ones like Mental’s ghost (“We need ghosts more than anyone else maybe, because we are railway-station boys without parents and homes,” muses one of his wards), as well as malevolent ones who might be kidnapping and doing unthinkable things to children.
Because that is...
