Summary

During supposed peacetime, amidst blooming Amaltas, a baby appears on the street, “in a crib of litter” (99). Across the city, changes are happening. The people are chanting “India! India!” (100), and looking forward to the arrival of Kmart, Walmart, and Starbucks. At the same time, poor villagers are displaced and dispossessed, treated as “surplus people” (102) and funneled into slums, squatter settlements, and resettlement colonies. Near where the baby appeared a “tubby old Gandhian” (105) led a movement of young professionals against corruption. Next to this group another Gandhian activist is also fasting in support of farmers and tribespeople whose land was given away to a petrochemicals corporation. One man has decorated himself with yellow limes, glued to his torso with superglue, while another man is dressed in a suit made of “perfectly shaped turds” (111), as a commentary on society’s aversion to them.

Anjum...