Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
post
page
product
Want to stay in the loop with latest bookish news and views? Subscribe to HarperBroadcast!
harpercollins-broadcast
close
search

Read an Excerpt from Tarun J. Tejpal’s ‘The Line of Mercy’

Share

In the thick air of a coastal town, inside the iron bars manufactured by the laws of men, life explodes with tropical ferocity. Inferno, purgatorio, paradiso, and limbo – always limbo – come together in a frantic soup of sadness and madness. More truths and revelations are laid bare than can be claimed by any courtroom or church.

The Line of Mercy is an epic – and utterly original – addition to the universal literature of crime and punishment. Read an excerpt to get started.

The overlord was known as Peter the Fist and he was one of the three ruling bhais of the prison. Inside the iron bars his domain was the first floor and in the wide world outside the rich beaches of the north. He lived by extortion and the punch. He was wiry and sharp-nosed with a royalty tourism moustache twisted to a sharp point under his cheekbones. He had the hands of a dock worker and to see him in the dark was to think he was wearing batting gloves.

His full name was Peter de Pimenta. A Roman Catholic he believed in confession and in charity and he hated Hindu businessmen. Don’t give don’t enjoy, he said.

The medical entrepreneur – soon to be known as Dr Hagg – did not step outside his cell for the first one week. His food was brought to him by his cellmates and the guard’s position – weightless plastic chair and stool straight from China – was shifted from up the corridor to outside his room.

Dr Hagg could be seen mostly counting prayer beads or staring at the small shivering television. He watched the news. It was how the upmarket inmate separated himself from the rest.

While privatisation had given the country more than seven hundred channels the choice inside the iron bars was between two government offerings. One national news channel and one entertainment channel.

Since the government had better things to do than entertain the masses the stock of amusement was thin. The highlights were talent shows in which young kids from slums danced the flamenco and sang in falsetto and four Hindi films a week. One old. Two new. And one in-between.

The in-between film was always from the sixties and it pulsed with hot colours. Some bureaucrat’s idea of generating anticipation had decreed the film be broken into two halves. The first was telecast on Tuesday night and the second on Wednesday.

The old films came midmorning on Sunday. Faded black and white prints with dulcet songs. These films were heard and not seen.

There was also a regional language film with English subtitles every Monday night. Generally dark and rural and depressing. Mostly about the endless travails of dalits and Muslims and tribals. Even the dalits and Muslims and tribals never watched them. They were referred to as khargosh – rabbit – which was the name of a film that had caught some boy’s fancy.

The country inside the iron bars was no different from the sales pitch of India outside. It was gloriously young. It was all jeans and sneakers and spiffy hairstyles and swagger. What this demographic dividend looked forward to the most were the new films. Every Friday and Saturday. But if you stayed in long enough – and virtually everyone did – you began to catch repeats of even the new films. A collective groan pushed at the high walls each time another weekend was ruined by some careless junior bureaucrat in New Delhi.

When it happened the bhais and the well-heeled boys pulled out their smartphones and got their factotums to roll their joints and settled in to watch a download of the latest Hollywood action thriller. As outside the iron bars the poor and the ill-connected resigned themselves to dealing with the government’s lack of imagination.

Television viewing till midnight was the result of a treaty between the boys and the khakis. Since the beginning of time the switch-off hour had been nine p.m. Then two years ago there had been a summit meeting that lasted a week. The boys traded in their morning hour in the yard for extended television time. The assistant superintendent of the jail – a fat and cunning man lately christened Singham after the cop hero of a recent film – was delighted with the barter. The world was a perfect place as long as the boys were inside their cells and the heavy iron doors sealed tight with locks of shining brass.

Pushing this concuss-them-with-television strategy further Singham had then toyed with the possibility of a cable network connection. With its commitment to sobriety government television shuts down at midnight but the cable networks – torrential and pauseless – could be relied on to stupefy the boys every minute of the day and night.

The Line Of Mercy
About the Book - The Line Of Mercy

In the thick air of a coastal town, inside the iron bars manufactured by the laws of men, life explodes with tropical ferocity. Inferno, purgatorio, paradiso, and limbo - always limbo - come together in a frantic soup of sadness…

About the Author - Tarun J Tejpal

To read more, order your copy of The Line Of Mercy, by Tarun J Tejpal today!

₹ 899.0000
  • Amazon
  • flipkart
  • Or buy from your local bookseller.

Deprecated: File Theme without comments.php is deprecated since version 3.0.0 with no alternative available. Please include a comments.php template in your theme. in /var/www/html/harper_staging/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6085

There are no comments.


Warning: Undefined variable $aria_req in /var/www/html/harper_staging/wp-content/themes/harpercollins/comments.php on line 67

Warning: Undefined variable $aria_req in /var/www/html/harper_staging/wp-content/themes/harpercollins/comments.php on line 68

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Favourite Banner
Your favourite literary newsletter just got a makeover!

New Releases • Author Speak • Events & Festivals Recommendations • First Look • After School Tales Press Room • Pre Orders • Coming Soon • Special Offers Trending • Just In • Also Read • And much more...