State of the Nation

RAJ KAMAL JHA'S UNSETTLING NEW NOVEL SQUARELY ADDRESSES CONTEMPORARY INDIAN REALITIES

- 

THE PATIENT IN BED NUMBER 12

By Raj Kamal Jha

PENGUIN

₹599; 272 pages

Raj Kamal Jha's sixth novel is a portrait of a nation on its sickbed. The Patient in Bed Number 12, in Jha's now familiarly elliptical style, tells stories of people who do terrible things, or to whom terrible things are done, or both. The novel opens in an intensive care unit: "Dear Nisha, meaning night, I am infected, please keep your child away from me." The diagnosis, it appears, is terminal.