Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara

I may have said this about multiple contenders now, but this one definitely needs to make the Women's Prize shortlist! Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara is unlike anything I have ever read and was intensely moving, harrowing and creative. This novel focuses in on the extremely important issue of the vast amount of children who go missing in India, and the fact that this is often overlooked by Indian authorities. The narrator, Jai, is a nine-year-old boy living in a basti (an Indian slum) with his parents and sister, Runu. Jai loves watching Police Patrol, a detective show on TV, and wants nothing more than to be a detective himself. When a local boy, Bahadur, goes missing, Jai and his friends Pari and Faiz decide to play detectives and solve the case for themselves. They believe (correctly) that the authorities are indifferent to the incident, and that they must take matters into their own hands, beginning by searching for clues in the local bazaar. Over the course of the novel, more and more children begin to disappear and the situation becomes increasingly devastating.

Despite the title of the novel, there are not a lot of supernatural references - the 'Purple Line' is a train route which leads to Mumbai, which the three friends believe is the direction in which the missing children have 'run away' from home. I learned that a djinn is a type of spirit that can appear in human or animal forms, according to Arabian and Muslim mythology - the children suspect that djinns may be responsible for the disappearance of their classmates, not entertaining the possibility that there may be a criminal at large in their own community. Anappara explores the extreme class division in India, with the impoverished slum as the novel's setting which is constantly watched over by the looming high-rise buildings which house the much wealthier members of society. The economic, religious and social divide is cleverly illuminated by the narration of the honesty and naivety of a child. Due to the very poignant reality of the subject matter in this book, don't expect a happy ending from this one. 

The narrative voice is the real superstar element of this novel. Anappara has cleverly constructed the 'world' according to a nine-year-old boy, who believes he is highly aware and mature beyond his years - but in reality is extremely naive and innocent. The story through the lens of a child makes for a frank, honest and objective account of what he sees and experiences, free from the prejudice that is often held in adults. There are elements which are humorous, childlike and heartwarming, such as the descriptions of the colours and smells of the bazaar; yet equally some extremely harrowing scenes when Jai begins to come to terms with the reality of the situation, in contrast to his earlier disbelief and immense optimism that the children would be found alive. This is a truly eye-opening, heartbreaking and emotional coming-of-age novel which has educated me on the reality of the dangers of the divided society of modern India, where lives really do seem to be worth less when you have less.