required reading

Animal's People is the second novel by Indian writer Indra Sinha, and is the last of the Booker shortlist for me. On first sight it doesn't look promising: a mishmash of photo images superimposed onto a beige background with a confusion of type. But this is the beauty of the Booker prize; each year it encourages me to pick up fantastic novels that my eyes would otherwise have skimmed over had I even found them in the bookshop.

The eponymous Animal is the narrator of this story, speaking his words into a tape machine given to him by journalist:

"I used to be human once. So I'm told. I don't remember it myself, but people who knew me when I was small say I walked on two feet just like a human being."

Animal's story is of an Indian city, Khaufpur, devastated by an industrial disaster at a U.S. owned chemical factory, the effects of which are still reverberating 20 years later, and his qualification for telling it is that his spine has been warped by the effects of this disaster, so that he now walks on all fours. Khaufpur itself isn't real, but is presumably based on the city of Bhopal and the disaster at a chemical factory operated by Union Carbide in 1984, which are all too real. Nearly 2,000 people were killed in the immediate aftermath, and a total of 20,000 are estimated to have died as a result of the disaster in the longer term, with over 120,000 people suffering from respiratory diseases, gynaecological problems, cancer, blindness, and other problems caused by exposure to the 40 tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate released into the air. The incident has been labelled the world's worst industrial disaster by Greenpeace, and its shocking effects are matched by the continuing controversy over the fact that Union Carbide refuses to take responsibility for the disaster. The continuing legislation against the American 'kampani' provides the structure and toAnimal's People.

The tape device alllows Animal to address his Western audience directly, so that we can read this novel without having to suspend our disbelief that Animal's story could ever be presented to us. I think that, in the end, the tape device is unnecessary; because it is designed to be believed, it becomes a niggle when it is less believable, towards the end of the novel. And Animal doesn't require any narrative devices to feel more real; he is an incredibly vivid, dirty, intensely likeable character throughout.

Animal lives on four rupees a day, spends his time fantasising about Nisha who has plucked him from the streets and 'civilised' him, and fantasising about how to destroy Nisha's boyfriend Zafar, activist and all-round saint. But the catalyst in the novel is the arrival of Elli, a doctor from the U.S. who has arrived to set up a free clinic for the victims of 'that night', as the Khaufpurians call it, and Animal's life seems about to turn upside down. And because the story is told by Animal it is generally vivid and dirty and intense. The action slows down slightly about 200 pages in, but the conclusion is dramatic and satisfying.

Animal's People is about what it is to be human. Animal consistently denies that he is one, preferring to eschew any responsibilities by embracing the cruel nickname that he has been taunted with since he has gone on all-fours. And yet the evidence is all to the contrary, as he cares forhis slightly-crazy surrogate mother Ma Franci, helps Elli Barber overcome opposition from the community she has come to aid, and, in short, protects those he loves. He is a wonderful contradiction, as most people are, full of talk that says one thing, and action that does another.

'You look a lot like a human being to me,' Farouq says.

'Of course he's a human being,' says Zafar.

'You pretend to be an animal so you can escape the responsibility of being human,' Farouq carries on. 'No joke, yaar. You run wild, do crazy things and get away with it because you're always whining, I'm an animal. I'm an animal.'

'And I'm an animal, why?' I retorted. 'By my choice or because others named me Animal and treated me like one?'

'You're well enough looked after now,' says Farouq. 'We are your friends. Don't we care about you? All this bitterness, it's in your own mind. To be accepted as a human being, you must behave like one. The more human you act, the more human you'll be.' He spoils the effect of this decent speech by adding with a smirk, 'Four-foot cunt.'

At this Zafar looks down in the mouth because he's not in favour of making a mockery of those who are otherwise. He says this discussion has gone far enough and that Farouq is a bad loser and also that we are both wrong, because there is a heaven, but in the words of the poet,

Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast,

Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast.

'If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this!'

Animal is a wonderful contradiction, as most people are, full of talk that says one thing, and action that does another. Animal's People is a gloriously humane novel (probably in every sense of the word), depicting people in all of their fullness - base instincts coupled with high principles -  and showing how much good mercy and compassion can often acheive. It was an incredibly satisfying read, and it will be the novel that I'm recommending to all and sundry over the next few months.