Category
Talks
Talks
Nilanjan Choudhary
in conversation with
Giridhar Rao
October 2nd 2018.
Review of Shillong Times in The Hindu by Manmohan Bahadur
About ethnic faultlines, but also about how kindness heals divides
Shillong in the mid-80s is still idyllic although the times are anything but. Set in this period, Shillong Times is as much about the clash of cultures as it is about a young boy’s journey from a comparatively secure life to a dystopian world.
The book dives into the heart of the matter in the very first sentence. The word dkhar comes hurtling towards the reader as the stone does to the ‘Outsider’s’ head. Dkhar : Outsider. The innocence of a 14-year-old’s world shatters as he realises that he does not belong, but does not understand why not.