Book review: Mother India by Prayaag Akbar

In the name of the mother

Prayaag Akbar`s second book contains as much thought-provoking matter as his first,  Leila, did. Using a crisp, matter-of-fact style, Akbar draws a succinct portrait of Indian society caught in the glare of social media headlights. If life was a struggle to stay afloat for much of the earlier generations, life is a struggle to stay relevant for today`s generations. The author`s strategy is to tell it like it is, and if the reader wants to infer that the story is a critique of things as they are, well, that is entirely the reader`s prerogative.

We are introduced to Nisha and Mayank, strangers to each other, both currently residing in Delhi and trying to make a living as best they can. Nisha comes from a small hill town and palpably misses it even as she enjoys the perks of the big city like working for a Japanese confectionary company at a swanky mall, acquiring a big city boyfriend, learning to recognise the soft and hard expressions of luxury. She comes across as a practical girl who is ready to do whatever it takes to thrive in Delhi.

Mayank piques the reader`s interest because he is an intelligent young man stuck making `national` and patriotic video clips for yet another of the many shrill YouTube channels  India is currently seeing a deluge of. This content creator is a history buff, he can actually tell right from wrong even as he is stuck in this right-wing job, and most importantly, he has aspirations.

Even as the reader wonders where Mayank goes from here, he morphs an unknown girl`s photo and using the bare minimum of AI, transforms it into a picture of Mother India…of course this is Mother India under attack from inimical men wearing skull caps and hurling rocks at her. The picture he has lifted is Nisha`s from her Insta feed, and when it goes viral, life changes for both the doer and the done to.

Life in the times of social media

Readers are given a clear if quick look at the factories that churn out this rage-inciting, hate-perpetrating, shoddily produced videos, a confusion of imagery and bullet points (there`s mention of a `lively` video on bulldozer justice) that spreads manipulated `facts,`  that vows  eternal revenge on all those who have wronged Mother India. The story takes  a look at distorted history, fanned resentments, troubled family histories, at alienation even in the midst of people, at the mad hunt for fame or notoriety online, at the `fabulous heedless people` and the not so fabulous ones, at those who look for something called `migrant venality.`  The  look at the capital city`s  `development` which tramps over old water bodies, still older hamlets, the old way of life, swapping it for a frenetic modernity, is a distinctly sardonic one. The manner in which Nisha considers using social media to her family`s advantage at the end of the story is both pragmatic and strangely optimistic.

Akbar`s triumph, in this reviewer`s opinion, is that he refuses to get preachy, and keeps things at surface level, even upbeat. This is a mirror to our social media world where nothing is static, where everything is grandstanding, where every new scandal quickly makes way for the next. As one character says, it doesn’t matter what (he) is actually saying or trying to say, what matters is how we interpret it, how we relay it to our followers. Those who learn how to manage this whirling carousel  are on top of things. Today, nothing seems the end of the world…and yes, it is for the reader again, to decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. After all,  Mother India is apparently strongest when she`s attacked.

Mother India by Prayaag Akbar. Fourth Estate Books. Rs 499. 168 pages

This ran in the Sunday Express Magazine of 18 August 2024.