Politicians in Khaufpur and Delhi are privately seething that the memoir “Animal’s People”, narrated by street kid Jaanvar, aka Animal, has been selected on the long list of the prestigious Man Booker prize.
The prize’s previous winners include Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai and Arundhati Roy, who has in the past given public support to the cause of the Khaufpuri survivors.
The Chief Minister’s office has condemned the tome, penned on behalf of Animal by journalist Indira Singh (left), as “a filthy and vile poison, full of bad language and sexy frolics, which depicts Khaupuri politicians as cynical and corrupt personages”.
Khaufpur police have been searching for Animal, but he has vanished from the city after leaving a statement saying that he was going away to the UK to attend the Edinburgh Festival.
Reports that Animal has after all been issued a passport were denied by the Chief Minister’s secretariat, which told the Gazette, ‘We have strongly recommended that the application be refused. We do not want such types going abroad to represent our city and our nation.’
Delight in the bastis
Among the survivors there is great rejoicing at the thought that more people overseas will now learn of their plight.
‘I think Animal has legged it,’ says basti dweller Chunaram Prasad, owner of the Paradise chai-shop in the city’s notorious Nutcracker area.’I asked him how he planned to travel without a passport. He was laughing and boasting, ‘I’ll enter the UK on August 22, in a wooden crate disguised as a marble statue.”‘
