Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena. Published in 2020 by Penguin Random House India Pvt. Ltd., 7th floor, Infinity Tower C, DLF Cyber City, Gurgaon, 122002; website: www.penguin.co.in. Pp: 374. Price: Rs 399.
In Hunted by the Sky, Tanaz Bhathena (pictured) attempts to blend myth and fantasy to create an imaginary world resembling ancient India. This is her third novel: she has been publishing one every year — A Girl Like That (2018) and The Beauty of the Moment (2019) — but whereas the earlier novels are located in a world we all are familiar with, Hunted by the Sky is set in the kingdom of Ambar during the reign of the evil King Lohar in an indeterminate period in the past.
The novel begins on a thrilling note; the father of Gul, the protagonist, has been shot in the skull by the evil Sky Warrior who is a woman and whose name is, as we later learn, Major Shayla or the Scorpion. The first indication that the novel has been set in ancient India is the weapon the Sky Warrior uses, the atashban, "a crossbow with an arrow permanently nocked into place.” Bhathena moves the story skilfully between the bloody and horrific present to memories of happier times which Gul enjoyed with her parents, which adds to the pathos of the present situation. Gul makes a vow that she will avenge the death of her parents by destroying King Lohar and putting an end to his despotic rule.
The city of Ambarvadi has been divided into two sections: one inhabited by the privileged ones, the magi, who have the gift of magic, and the other by the non-magi, who are forced to live on the periphery in insalubrious tenements and are deprived of basic necessities like clean drinking water and education. Gul, a magi, and Cavas, who lives in the tenements, meet in the market place and are instantly attracted to each other. The novel is narrated from the point of view of these two characters. Gul is rather a tiresome character as she is dominated by a single-minded purpose — to take revenge and kill the oppressors. Cavas, who works in the palace stables, is more interesting and sympathetically portrayed. His father is suffering from a fever and he is forced to pass on privileged information from the palace to a mysterious man in exchange for money which he uses to buy medicines for his father. He is even ready to endanger his life by joining the army just to take care of his ailing father.
To help Gul achieve her objective is the Sisterhood of the Golden Lotus, three brave women — Kali, Amira and Juhi — who have no permanent home. They kill their enemies with weapons and spells, rescue Gul and train her to develop her magic skills and hone them as they realize that she is the "marked girl destined to bring forth a revolution, leading to a new era of peace in Ambar.” Bhathena’s strength has always been her portrayal of characters, especially feisty women characters who we encounter in this novel as well. But the sheer breadth of the canvas and the numerous individuals who populate it does not really give her the scope to develop them in a leisurely fashion.
When a novel is set in a mythical kingdom the author has to devote a lot of time to describe a setting that is suitable for the action. Bhathena takes great pains to present a convincing and intricate picture of her world. But this results in large passages of description which take away from the tension in the story and make it a rather tedious read. All the locations are elaborately described and at great length: the city of Ambarvadi; the two palaces of the King and the Queen; the squalid tenements which house the non-magi; the Desert of Dreams where the dust, stinging the eyes, is as bright as a diamond and can also cause damage if it is inhaled; and the dustwolves, "bigger than the biggest dog…(with) stubby horns growing out of its skull.” In addition to the descriptive landscapes which could have been shortened, there is too much elaborate detail about the appearance of her characters and, in particular, their clothes.
She narrates a myth of the two moons, Sunheri and Neel, to parallel the love interest between Gul and Cavas, but once again this could have been condensed as it tends to distract the reader from the main plot. One of the flaws of the novel is that Bhathena relies too much on narration. There is a constant emphasis on telling the reader rather than allowing situations to speak for themselves. The back stories are presented in a clumsy manner as is the case with Juhi’s narration to Gul of the long-drawn history of Svapnalok divided into four kingdoms Ambar (sky), Prithvi (earth), Jwala (fire) and Samudra (water).
What Bhathena does in an interesting manner is to occasionally bridge the gap between fantasy and reality by grounding the novel in contemporary India. This is done consistently with descriptions of food: kachoris, lassi, nutty mawa, ghee, rabdi with fried cashew nuts and raisins and creamy kadhi with khichdi. Once again, what Bhathena manages with great dexterity is the ending of the novel. One can read it as a stand-alone story as many of the central issues are sorted out. However, there are a few unresolved strands which, I suppose she will take up in her next novel, Rising like a Storm, which is expected to be published in India in June 2021. One hopes that she will then return to the world which she, as well as the readers are familiar with and which she has filled in her earlier novels with credible and well portrayed characters.
FIRDAUS GANDAVIA
Gandavia holds a doctorate in English literature and is a retired chartered accountant. He is a compulsive reader of fiction.