‘Remember, Mr Sharma’: This novel laced with novel magical realism explores India’s communal history

This book was an unusual one for me in a few respects, which is one of the reasons I struggled more with reviewing it than usual. AP Firdaus’s Remember, Mr Sharma, a magical realism novel, seems geared towards the pre-teen age group exploring some dark themes in India’s political and communal history.

It follows the adventures of a 12-year-old whom we know as Adi – unexpectedly short for Adi Shankara – Sharma, as he navigates not only generational trauma and familial conflict but also the seventh standard, an ongoing trial that is punctuated by a talking time-traveling bureaucrat vulture. Vultures seem to have been chosen not so much for their winning personalities as for the sake of a deft little dig about the human race and the messes we leave behind for others to clean up. Also included is a quick digression about the Indian vulture crisis, particularly contemporary in this case, because Remember, Mr Sharma, is set in the year 1997 – the 50th year of India’s independence.

That comes up a lot because of the parallel Firdaus sets up between the independence and its ensuing fallout for the country at large from the British Empire and the independence and ensuing fallout for Adi and his mother...

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