Deepti Kapoor confidently captures Delhi’s circle of power in Age of Vice (Juggernaut) — the maddening play of sin, envy, corruption and pride — but she also effectively chronicles India’s contemporary socio-economic landscape.
The characters are a tad familiar though, from a naive boy from India’s small town to a crime family’s aesthete son. And the action is consistently graphic: the book begins with a Mercedes ramming into five migrant workers sleeping on the pavement.
“A turning point for me was the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh in 2012,” says the former journalist, who is currently based in Lisbon. “In the aftermath, I was drawn to inquire about the specific circumstances: what led these men to operate the bus illegally, what kind of corruption was in place that enabled this.
“Once you start joining the dots as to how the system works, you understand that you have a responsibility as a writer to address it. Even if you do it in a masala potboiler. And maybe it’s better if you do that [a potboiler] because then more people will read you and you can smuggle in some serious ideas.”
Read the full story here: Interview | Deepti Kapoor on inquiry and tackling serious ideas in the “masala potboiler” Age of Vice
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