Capturing life’s many complexities, mostly man-made, Border Crossers is all about stepping into the unknown, braving the odds and surviving the high tides

The rich prose of this book by Bhaskar Roy spirals the reader deep into the muddy world of religious extremism created by powermongers. A master in storytelling, Roy has sensitively portrayed the frailty and helplessness of the vulnerable, and the prevalent forces that define this century.

It took Roy seven years to write Border Crossers. The book is more than an immigrant’s journey. It is an individual’s forced transformation when he or she is compelled to cross the boundaries. It is an indisputable identity loss.

Rita, a poor slum dweller living in Delhi’s satellite town, Noahda, is happy to work as a cook in the home of a retired diplomat, Arijit Basu. The compassionate, well-known ex-diplomat, jaded and exhausted with his globetrotting and emotionally saturating personal life, is a resident of a new skyscraper in Noahda. The reclusive old man discovers her as an undocumented migrant from Bangladesh by chance, but his humane self doesn’t shun her, rather views her as a daughter in distress.

With his decades-long experience as a journalist, Roy’s methodical plot transports the reader to the days of the classics. He carefully pens the human condition like an observer, layered with the social turmoil of greedy men, irrational behaviour and the parallel lives of skyscrapers and slums.

As a journalist, Bhaskar Roy worked with India Today, Indian Express, Times of India, to name a few publications. He quit mainstream journalism in 2011 and was the founding editor of The Equator Line, a quarterly magazine.

Crossing borders, whether of nations or communities or cities, has always changed perspectives. This stands out well in the book. From Rabeya Sheikh in Bangladesh to Rita in Delhi and finally Uma in Dehradun, the young girl goes through harrowing experiences to survive, live a simple life. While she is caught in the trap of poverty, Arijit’s life has other traps such as loneliness, a sense of personal loss, despite the comfort of a good home and a good career.

There are many viewpoints and characters in the book, ranging from conspiracy theories to mal intent, purposeful slandering, judgemental TV journalists and scavenging print ones. The society gossipmongers, star-crossed lovers, dramatic ostracization, silence of the lambs and the corrupt men in uniform, all make up the many layers of this story.  

Through his moving narrative, Roy takes us into the minds of the intellectuals, policymakers, and the seedy underbelly that tramples upon innocent and naïve ones. The reader sees the men behind the masks, mischief-makers, real estate mafia, sleeper cells, young deaths, trolls, and displacement in many ways. The victims: the poor, the downtrodden and the underexposed constantly on the run to survive and put down their roots, unable to escape the labyrinth of life.  

Interspersed with the finer aspects of high society, culture, cuisine, globetrotting, Border Crossers is an intense read, where many lives are tarred due to miscreants and religious fanaticism. A thought-provoking book, this story moves through the past and the present, the lost and the found, the real and the fictional, the truth and the lies.

Book Details
Publisher: Hachette India  
Language: English
Paperback: 352 pages
Price: INR 599

This review is powered by Blogchatter Book Review Program