Book review: Chronicle of an Hour and a Half by Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari
Prelude to a riot
In his debut work, Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari sets the mise-en-scene at a measured pace, introducing the reader to the various characters of Vaiga village in the foothills of the Western Ghats, with the rain in the vanguard of the cast. Even for Kerala, this is torrential rain, pouring down relentlessly, bringing down trees, old houses, flooding the river, snapping electricity, a storm playing on the villagers` nerves.
However, not everyone is staying indoors during this storm. Burhan sneaks off for a tryst with his paramour, a married woman fifteen years his senior. There is no sentimental love story we are offered about this couple; Reyhana spots the handsome Burhan at a travel agency where he is minding the store for a friend, and quite calculatingly entraps him. Trapped in a loveless marriage to a man she loathes now working in the Gulf, this is an act of revenge for her, despite all the risks it involves.
News of their affair has already leaked and Reyhana`s brother-in-law and his sons set off in the downpour, to rough up and warn off the young man. However, emotions and matters spin quickly out of control, there is a scuffle that turns suddenly violent. And all of it is captured on mobile phones and quickly disseminated via social media.
Now the kerfuffle takes on a life of its own and there`s no stopping what happens next: a riot, with most of the men in Vaiga taking a sanctimonious stand on this affair and determined to play some part in meting out punishment. The punishment becomes a macabre one, and the lynch mob takes a step back, not too sure of the nature of the beast they have unleashed.
Politics of the heart
The politics involved in this story is not communal in content, this is politics of the heart. The affair is happening between two Muslims, and every Muslim in the village decides to take a stand or is compelled to in the face of the social media onslaught, become as the author writes, righteous beyond religion, Muslims beyond Islam. There is Nabeesumma, the hapless Burhan`s mother, trying her best to stop the madness. There is the Imam, half-heartedly trying to gather his flock and point them towards piety, then retreating as the horror grows. There is the (non-Muslim) loose-lipped Chinnan, spreader of all and any gossip that comes his way, and he doesn’t hold back in this instance. There is his sensible wife Panchami who locks Chinnan up in the house so as to prevent him going out and gathering other disaffected people; only, that is akin to asking the rain to hold back its fury.
Kannanari infuses the unsettling story with a sadness that permeates the place, the people, the happenings. In an hour and a half, a village is torn apart savagely. He quotes Don Delillo is saying the future belongs to crowds and this chronicle of chaos is apt testimony to the truth of that. Sometimes when poison spreads, it takes on the strength of a tidal wave.
Chronicle of an Hour and a Half by Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari. Westland Books. 201 pages.
This ran in the Sunday Express Magazine of 11 Feb 2024.
Related Links:
Book review: The Bellboy by Anees Salim
Book review: The Small-town Sea by Anees Salim
Sheila Kumar • February 11, 2024