Tavleen Singh’s debut novel: An actor joins a political party committed to the ideals of secularism

It was that season in Delhi between winter and summer when all the flowering trees and plants on the city’s endless roundabouts were in bloom – as if to compensate for a season so ambiguous it has no Indian name. These were the trees of Amit’s youth. He particularly loved the red silk cotton, or semal, because there had been one in the garden of his childhood home. He had been fascinated by its silvery branches on dark nights and by how extraordinary it looked when it flowered and its fat flowers fell in splashes of red. Then, when it got hotter, the flowers gave way to wisps of wool that drifted all over the garden. On the way into the city from the airport, he drove past parks filled with Caribbean trumpet, whose yellow blossoms were the colour of sunlight, and Ceylon oak, whose yellow flowers grew on leafless branches.

On his way to the Taj Mahal Hotel, Amit Singh did not notice these flowering trees, or the hot, dry wind that blew clouds of dust onto the windscreen of the car. He noticed nothing because he was completely absorbed in his own thoughts – he had finally become that most...

Read more