Generic Hybridity, Narrative Polyphony and Uncanny Slums in Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

Abstract

Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple (2020) centres on the mysterious disappearance of children from the basti of an Indian shantytown, thus immersing the reader into the climate of injustice, grievability and vulnerability of contemporary India. Anappara’s debut novel may be described as a coming-of-age narrative with elements of fantasy and crime fiction. It uses various focal perspectives, relying particularly on the ingenuous gazes and voices of the children from the basti. In my article, I will first explore the formal texture of Anappara’s novel, laying emphasis on its generic hybridity and multi-voiced narrative organization. Then, I will examine how the interface of precarity and resilience is thematised through a focus on the particular topography of the city, emblematic of the issues of grievability and vulnerability of present-day India. I will then conclude by showing how in Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line story-telling may be considered as an act of resistance in a world of social injustice.