Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

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Reality shows on TV are popular in India as it is elsewhere across the world, and the one about cops that Jai watches called Police Patrol is based on a similar, long-running TV show in India. It seemed natural that Jai would be inspired by what he watches on TV; popular culture in the form of TV and Hindi films do exert an influence on daily lives.

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara | Goodreads Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara | Goodreads

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line] makes an urgent case for the protection of the country’s youngest and most vulnerable Timothy Harrison, Vogue, *Books to Look Our For in 2020* The strength of this novel is the vivid setting of the Indian basti (slum) and surrounding city that 9-year old Jai navigates. It is written as a light-hearted caper featuring Jai imitating a TV detective to find a missing friend. Until more children go missing and it is clear that there is a serious problem, it feels like a middle-grade novel. I ended up skimming the 2nd half. I'm not sure who the intended audience is - but it isn't me.A partial of her novel won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, and the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel. It is now being translated into 17 languages. Deepa’s short fiction has won the Dastaan Award, the Asian Writer Short Story Prize, the second prize in the Bristol Short Story awards, the third prize in the Asham awards, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, where she is currently studying for a Creative-Critical Writing PhD on a CHASE doctoral fellowship. EP: Jai watches lots of reality TV cop shows and adopts the role of a detective in trying to find his missing classmate. This feels like a brilliant way in to telling this story. How did the cop show/detective strand come about? While Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a fascinating study of India in the modern age, the plot left much to be desired. The protagonist was difficult to gel with and the pacing was far too slow to be enjoyable. None of which was helped by the rushed ending, which felt like an afterthought and unearned. Set in a basti, or Indian slum, where children have vanished and the police are disinclined to help, the novel follows 9-year-old Jai and his friends as they play detective to try and solve the case. It’s an incredible window on daily life in such a place – the precarity of knowing the authorities could bulldoze your home at any moment, but also the strong family and community bonds that form there. The sights sounds and smells of the basti are vividly evoked as Jai & investigate, and this immersive depiction is really well-balanced to be neither sensationalised nor sugar-coated. Her work has won several awards for journalism, including the Developing Asia Journalism Awards, the "Every Human has Rights" Media Awards, as well as the Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism. [3] Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature in 2020.

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However, beyond the cultural commentary of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, the actual story is quite the slow-burn. Maybe a bit too slow, in my opinion. I found myself struggling to stay captivated by the story, wishing it would move at a better pace.

A moving and confident novel about the preciousness of life. The storytelling is distinctive and immersive Nikesh Shukla, author and editor of The Good Immigrant In channelling complex social and political realities through Jai’s voice, Anappara creates an endearing and highly engaging narrator to navigate us through the dark underbelly of modern India.