Legal Fiction-Chandan Pandey (Translated by Bharatbhooshan Tiwari)

Book: Legal Fiction
Author: Chandan Pandey
Translator: Bharatbhooshan Tiwari
Publisher: HarperCollins India

What do you think the term “Legal Fiction” means?

Legal Fiction by Chandan Pandey is the story of writer Anuj Kumar who receives a late-night call from his ex-girlfriend Anusuya, which forces him to leave his wife in Delhi and travel to Noma, a mofussil town on the UP-Bihar border. The reason for the call was that Anusuya’s husband, Rafique Neel, a theatre director and a college professor had mysteriously gone missing. As Arjun gets into the depth of things, he realizes that things in the settlement are not what they seem. Everyone has their own version of events, and each one of the people Arjun comes across seems to have their own agenda. Janaki, Rafique’s student, has also disappeared, and the locals are determined to turn it into a case of 'love jihad'. Inspired by true events from today's India, Legal Fiction is a brilliant existential thriller and a chilling parable of our times.

There are certain stories that make you contemplate the situation around you. Legal Fiction is a story that does exactly that. It is a short and fast-paced read, but the depth that it explores is quite high. The idea of the story is to showcase that there are always multiple perspectives to a situation, and there are times when what we see might not be the truth. The storytelling is powerful and makes the reader pause and contemplate the theme he is exploring in the story. The emotions that Anuj feels are very real, and they are portrayed beautifully, both when he is speaking aloud and when he is thinking. I loved that the story is set in the inner mofussil town that provides a gravitas to it. The devil lies in the details, and Chandan details the plot just enough for the reader to make the connections. The book does not provide a specific ending, but the cliffhanger makes the story even more real, almost as if a life like incident unfolding.

Being a story that relies on its characters, Chandan has done a wonderful job creating relatable and realistic people, one that we would probably meet and interact in our daily lives. Anuj is not created as a knight in a shining armor, but a person with his share of faults which make him human. I loved how his beliefs change as the story progresses and his mind absorbs the gravity of the situation he has been put up in. Another character that I would like to mention, who impacted the story for me, was Archana, even though a major part of her is present only through an occasional message or call, but for me that played a crucial role in letting the story go the way it did. Rafique’s diary, for me, was as good as a character and deserves a mention here.

For the people who love reading a book cover to cover, do not miss out on the disclaimer, for it is something that explains the very idea of the book, and the emotions that the author felt while penning it.

The book scores a 4.81/5 for me.

Get a copy of the book here from Amazon India.