Set in the elite Mayo College boarding school in Rajasthan, Sudeep Chakravarti’s Tin Fish has been publicized as a school story. Which it is…but only on the surface. Funny, wry and sad by turns, it takes you through the pre-teen and teenage years of Fish, Porridge, PT Shoe and Brandy, aka Barun Ray, the narrator. Fast paced and readable, it does succeed in making you believe that the narrator is a young boy from the 70’s, his language peppered with slang and bad words, making sense of the world around him, and trying to underplay his grief, don’t be a stupid sentimental bastard-ya. We encounter teachers with names like Mutt, Yogi and Chalu-Charlie, and celebrities like the bully Maindak, the very likeable Moses, and characters like Squash and Century. The cupboard doors are decorated with posters of Zeenie Baby and Parveen Baby and the voluptuous Katy Mirza. Brandy’s tuck boxes come replete with canned fish, or ‘tin fish’, which brings with it comfort and familiarity, as he remembers Ma’s wonderful cooking back at home, with ‘tin fish’ as a special treat. Days are crammed with studies and games, peeling off socks dirtied with toe-jam and poring over Pat and Vicky’s ‘pondies’, the porn magazines. They’re also crammed with sexual fantasies about various ‘chicks’, both gora and otherwise. Letters are received and written, to parents, siblings, and in Fish’s case, to his Muslim girlfriend. The boys crib about Mayo, but feel proud of it when the ‘Doscos’ from the Doon School come visiting. Yet all this is on the surface. On another level, Tin Fish is a very clear commentary about the seventies. The outside world does intrude into the closeted kingdom of Mayo, and into the lives and thoughts of it’s students. We see it all…the Emergency, the blind worship of the Gandhis and the absolute faith in the Congress. The first signs of fanatical Hinduism in Fish’s Muslim-hating father. The Naxalite movement in Calcutta, where Brandy witnesses the massacre of college students. It is wry, sad, ironical and even funny, as when the boys try to make sense of a urine-imbibing Prime Minister. Tin Fish also has it’s incredibly sad moments, as the boys try to cope with their growing alienation from the families at home, as loved ones die far away, or grow apart. When intolerant parents unwittingly cause a terrible tragedy for the boys…shades of Dead Poets Society here. When circumstances make friends to separate and calf love has it’s unhappy ending. The boyish bravado and sometimes, the absolute honesty with which tragedy is met adds to the pathos, making some parts of the book absolute tear-jerkers. Boarding school can be incredibly lonely. In a way, Tin Fish is essentially a book about loyalty and friendship, friendship until death. As Brandy says, Mayo becomes family, and then it throws you out. Laugh and cry with Brandy, Fish, Porridge and PT Shoe through this unsentimental, real and unsettling book. You won’t regret it-ya. Because it’s a really cat book.