Author: Chandrahas Choudhury
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 184
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788172238308
Description
Arzee the dwarf's dream has come true. He has been crowned as head projectionist at the Noor, the Bombay cinema where he has been working since his teens. Arzee thinks that the worst of his troubles are behind him, and that he can marry and settle down now. But not for the first time, Arzee has it all wrong!
Arzee the Dwarf follows Arzee through day and night, slow time and fast time, agitation and reverie, beautifully setting off the inner world of his jagged ruminations against the beating and pulsing of the great city around him. The narration vividly brings to life not just the protagonist, but also a host of characters to whom Arzee turns in his hour of need. Can Arzee find a place for himself in "the world of the fives and the sixes"? This bittersweet comedy, shuffling between hope and dread, between the yearnings of body and soul, is a book about the strange beauty of human dreaming.
COMMENTS
‘A delightful debut. In a time of starved, anaemic prose, the rich, roiling vocabulary of Choudhury’s novel is one delight; its combination of droll humour, pathos, romance and pragmatism another. And doleful Arzee is just the most delightfully uncharacteristic hero you’ll meet in today’s fiction.’
-Aamer Hussein, author of Insomnia
‘Arzee the Dwarf perceptive, tender, gritty, and funny. In his intimate, nuanced portrait of Arzee, a man searching for the ingredients of a normal life – a job, love, dignity – Chandrahas Choudhury catches a world. Moving and insightful.’
- Vikram Chandra, author of Sacred Games
Contents
1. Arzee
2. Looking Forward
3. Caught by Deepak
4. At the Noor
5. Phirozbhai and the Great Beam
6. Mother and Other Elders
7. The old Wadia Chawl
8. Deepak, Work, Love and God
9. Being a Bottle
10. Hours with Monique
11. It's Only Me
12. The Body's Secret Grief
13. A Wedding
Acknowledgements