Screenwriter of Being Cyrus and Finding Fanny, Kersi Khambatta’s second novel is a coming-of-age narrative that spans two major cataclysmic events in the Maximum City
Kersi Khambatta
The word stowaway is used to refer to a person who hides on a ship or an airplane. It is also the title of Kersi Khambatta’s second novel about a Parsee-Irani boy living in Bombay (later Mumbai). Our curiosity is sufficiently piqued about the screenwriter’s name choice for his second novel. “I was around when Bombay exploded into Mumbai, this innocent toddler bursting into a jacked-up, supercharged, vice-ridden adult. Was that me or the city? Probably both. Perhaps Bombay had never really been innocent; it had just been lying in wait for a freer market, satellite television, better drugs and guns. Perhaps I — or more accurately, my protagonist — had never been innocent either. Either way, it was a story worth telling.”
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The Stowaway is about coming of age, of the city and of a Parsee-Irani boy who resides in it, their destinies cosmically aligned. It spans a period marked by two seminal events — the riots of 1993 and the attacks of 2008.
Hemali Sodhi of A Suitable Agency that represents Khambatta feels that this book will appeal to Mumbai’s readers, “Fabulously fast-paced, acerbically witty, this sprawling saga of family and vengeance absolutely takes your breath away, and is a page-turner.” It is a cautionary tale of excess hubris and privilege; of parallel universes separated by sliding doors best left shut. Khambatta prefers to think of it as a soaring love story that tries its best to defy gravity, but should have sensibly packed some parachutes.
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