Which is also why, Akbar in his writing refuses to meditate along with the protagonist, as if to say to the reader, ‘all you’. Yet it feels, peculiar in that it draws our knowledge out of the strongbox of wisdom, to the outlandish and wary landscapes of a future we are trying not to predict. If you can’t recall any, then you probably live under a rock, or perhaps need to read the book more than anyone else. As you read the book, memory as a reflex maps it to incidents that you have read, seen or experienced. The biggest strength of Leila, perhaps, is the fact that it does in no way feel eerie or unfamiliar. Shalini is separated from her daughter by all that is going on around her, but she manages to sustain herself through the most horrible circumstances because of this love for her daughter,” he says. “There are different kinds of relationships within families, but to me a mother and daughter seem to understand each other in a very special way - even when they're not on the friendliest terms, there is a deep bond there that the rest of us don’t get to experience. As soon as one starts reading Leila, there is the question of why did Akbar choose the voice of a mother. She sets out on a journey to find her, a horrific tableau of bureaucracy and middle-men, a chastening world where dignity is a matter of opinion.

And pays, as her husband, and eventually her daughter, Leila, are taken away from her.

In this eclipse of human dignity and freedom to choose, Shalini, the novel’s protagonist, goes against the tide. The key here is that the rules are enforced by a few, on a certain few more than it is on others. Leila is set in an India, probably not too far in the future, where factionalism has become synonymous with integrity, and division based on it pretty much the only important rule.

Prayaag akbar books