Review of
The Proof Diaries by Nidhi singh
Nidhi singh is a debutante Indian author, who writes in English. An avid blogger, reviewer, and illustrator, she has forayed into book writing after decades of creative doodling and dabbling.
This is a strange book of bumbling characters, trying to survive on the fringes of sanity. Outwardly dysfunctional and prone to depravity, these people somehow redeem themselves by rare threads of decency, and steadfastness of commitment, that stitch together their moral fabric.
No one knows much about the state of Odisha; tucked away at a remote outpost of human settlement in the Bay of Bengal, except its poverty, its cyclones, its tribals and the naxals. Many may have heard of its venerated Jagannath Temple and the Sun Temple of Konark. But a handful must only know of the haunting beauty of its bounteous, dark, and rolling hills inland, and of the casuarinas covered beaches; crisscrossed by numerous backwaters, sandbars and creeks that are home to some of the most exotic species on earth; such as the Olive Ridley Turtles, the White Mammoth Crocodiles and the lake dolphins.
The author keeps the landscape dark and gloomy, and the people dotting it brooding and intense. It seems all of us adults have a kink in our personalities, and no one is truly normal; but we never really venture and play out all our darkest sides the way the players in this story do. And that is what endears the reader to them; their flimsy veils of propriety, their sorry alibis for good behavior, and their keeping the chin up in the face of impossible odds. Despite their vulnerabilities, what keeps them going is their uncanny determination to stick by each other, often leading to hilarious escapades.
The ambitious, but weak CEO, the lazy scientists, the police inspector with a confused sexuality, an incestuous cook, and finally; the extremely sensuous tribal girl, Kasturi, and the much married, ex-commando Kaysar, who get entangled in a web of illicit relations, black magic mumbo-jumbo, adventure through marshy lands, skirmishes with the naxals and the ISI- it’s all there like a typical Bollywood potboiler.
Kaysar seduces Kasturi out of boredom and loneliness. He ends up biting more than he can chew when he blocks a defense import contract, earning the ire of the system. He is falsely implicated in a police case, but is allowed a chance to prove his innocence by the inspector, who is a bird of the same feather. After a whirlwind of erotica, action, black magic and encounters, Kaysar manages to shake himself free of the charge that looms over him.
In the end, there is redemption, as well as surprise in store, for our well meaning, but wild actors who have never taken themselves seriously.
It’s funny, it’s dark and it sits in a literary niche that doesn’t find many contributors in our country.
Worth a read.