Truth/Untruth

A trenchant, darkly humorous, and unsentimental look at Calcutta society. Set in Calcutta in the mid-1980s, Truth/Untruth is a fast-paced thriller built around the death of the pregnant Jamunaa maid in a newly affluent residential apartment complexand Arjun, the upwardly mobile businessman who seduced her. Packed with a cast of colorful characters, this novel is a trenchant, darkly humorous, and unsentimental look at the different segments of Calcutta society: from the middle-class culture vultures to the unscrupulous promoter class and the domestic helpers and slum goons who form an intrinsic part of the citys life. All are implicated in a complex web of guilt and bizarre twists and turns. Sex, lies, deaththe great modernist themesrun like a thread through this book, exposing societal greed, lust, corruption, and moral hypocrisy with a sardonic tone that spares none. An unusual novel by an author who is otherwise known for her hard-hitting activist-feminist stories, Truth/Untruth underlines the exploitative vicious cycle that defines urban relations between the haves and have-nots.