Screenwriter Kersi Khambattas new novel to explore turbulent Bombay of 1990s

New Delhi, Sep 16 (PTI) Author and screenwriter Kersi Khambatta, known for writing the screenplays of “Being Cyrus” and “Finding Fanny”, is coming out with a new novel, a sprawling crime saga set against the volatile Bombay of the late 1990s.

“Bombay Tabloid”, scheduled for release on September 28, is touted to combine the momentum and intrigue of a crime thriller with the scale and social observation of a literary family saga.

It is published by Speaking Tiger Books.

“The 90s in Bombay/Mumbai were the closest thing to a renaissance the city will ever have. The decade also saw the rebirth of fierce nationalism and divisive hatred. We partied and drank to our newfound prosperity even as we sensed the ugliness swim just below our sightline,” Khambatta

said in a statement.

For Khambatta, the period was also personally significant.

After a career in the merchant navy, he returned to the city to establish new roots and find new love. He says “violently turbulent coming-of-age story, of my protagonist Cyrus and of this filthy, vivacious city hurtling to its deadly destiny” was an ideal setting for his story.

Set in the 1990s, when Bombay had acquired its new name, Mumbai, and India’s economic liberalisation was transforming the city’s landscape, the novel follows two brothers, Cyrus Kerman and Rumi Dubash.

Bound by blood but divided by deep-rooted grudges, the brothers carry their conflicts from the old city into its rapidly changing future.

The story also brings together a stowaway who arrives in the city with hopes of a new life, a Bollywood “item girl” driven by a personal agenda.

“Fast, filthy, funny and ferociously alive, ‘Bombay Tabloid’ is a sprawling literary novel of obsessive love, dysfunctional families and revenge, blood-soaked rioters and brainwashed terrorists, all of whom will tumble and tangle in a classic clash of good versus evil in this City of Two Names, as that tenuous line between the bright lights of respectability and the dark menace of the underworld gets blurred,” read the book’s description.

Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah praised the novel, describing Khambatta’s writing as “transcendentally insane” and noting how it interweaves multiple narratives on an epic scale.

He called the book a tribute to a city that Khambatta “obviously loves and loathes in equal measure”.

Khambatta’s debut novel, “The Village of Pointless Conversation”, published in 2016, was longlisted for the ‘Tata Literature Live! First Book Award’.

“Bombay Tabloid”, priced at Rs 750, is currently available for pre-order online. PTI MG MAH MAH