Finding Freedom

This detective story, set in pre-Independence India, combines a fastpaced plot with reflections on what freedom means for individuals

- Jai Arjun Singh

The murder mystery can be a tough genre to work in, but it’s even more of a challenge if you locate the narrative in a distant period, adding historical research to the mix. In her fine debut novel, Sonia Bhatnagar juggles these two tasks. Set in 1930s Shimla (and briefly in Bombay), In Your Blood I Run is about a young man named Ratan who is forced to go into hiding after his employer and lover—a married Englishwoman—is murdered. Also caught in the thick of the subsequent investigation is Ratan’s estranged childhood friend Lavanya, and much of the narrative moves back and forth between these two protagonists until their paths gradually converge.

Though Lavanya is not a suspect in the case herself, she is useful as bait to lure Ratan out. Besides, a collection of her transgressive short stories had been found near the body, and the publicity brings a lot of attention on her book. Many people—including the men leading the investigation—are not pleased about these ‘dirty’ tales in which women express desire, reach for autonomy and slip across the boundaries that society has set for them.

In a sense, then, In Your Blood I Run is also about literature’s power to provoke and to emancipate. One startling passage is from Lavanya’s story