Fear and Loathing in Assam

The Rainbow Runners is a novel about violence, trauma, life and rediscovery.

- Thangkhanlal Ngaihte

The Rainbow Runners is a novel about violence, trauma, life and rediscovery. The story begins on an evening when the protagonist, Sriman, goes strolling along the sand banks of the Brahmaputra. He loves to feel the soft sand on his feet and the evening breeze on his cheeks, his eyes set on the rapidly changing colours of the darkening sky. But on that evening, as he sits trance-like inside a sandpit soaking in the serene ambience, he witnesses a cold-blooded murder.

A Maruti van pulls up and three men alight from it, dragging along a blindfolded fourth. The fourth man is made to kneel and shot pointblank in the back of the head. He is then pushed into a sandpit. After the killers leave, unable to contain his curiosity, Sriman goes to look.

In the glow of a gas lighter, the dead man's dull eyes stare up at him. He has died with eyes and mouth open. The sight haunts Sriman. He cannot shake off the trauma. Any mention of deaths trigger spasms. Worried for his sanity, he takes a job as a translator at an incipient newspaper.