Book review: 'Mumbai Roller Coaster'

Mumbai Roller Coaster
Author: Rajorshi Chakraborti
Publisher: Hachette
Pages: 267 pages
Price: Rs295

Rahul is a normal, scruffy, 16-year-old Mumbai boy with a sense of adventure and lots of energy; Zeenat, also 16, is a moderating influence in his life. Theirs is the typical lifestyle of Indian teenagers: parties, online social networks, combined study, milkshakes and brownies. But one day, when Rahul happens to see a man driving away after a policeman’s murder, the two friends step into a different story, down alleyways they have never traversed before, to see an entirely new side of the city.

Soon, they are in the middle of a web of intrigue: human trafficking, underworld crime, police criminalisation, and plans for world domination. Even Google Earth cannot help them negotiate the intricate labyrinths of human evil. Enter Ganesh, a young slum boy who not only risks his life to save Rahul’s but also guides them through this netherworld. The friendship between Ganesh and Rahul is one of the warmest elements in the novel. Ganesh emerges as a true hero in Rahul’s eyes: “The son of a boatman, a gardener’s assistant, a boy no higher than Rahul’s midriff, with stick-like limbs and large wide-open eyes, was his new crime-fighting superhero. He had it all, the full package, all the skills you could ask for — bravery, loyalty, the instinctive ability to tell the innocent from the guilty…’

The journey turns out to be a great teacher for the protagonists. Uneasily, in a city of massive inequalities, Rahul and Zeenat are forced to confront the true price of their privilege. For example, at one point, when they find themselves at a desolate bus stop amidst tall buildings, they realise that this is “the kind of stop that only the domestic help or drivers who worked in these flats would probably ever use.”

The narrator often interrupts the tale to comment on, elaborate and even digress from the main plot. When Rahul first notices the flecks of blood on his shirt that lead him to discover the murder, the narrator begins a systematic line of thinking about whether he should get involved in the nasty business going on; but then, he says, “Rahul wasn’t me, and he didn’t spend even a second mulling over these implications and alternatives.”

This distance between the narrator and Rahul highlights how we are made up of all the ethical choices we make. Containing the best elements of Chakraborti’s earlier novels, his first work for young adults, Mumbai Roller Coaster, is a warm, intelligent adventure.