A Tale of Our Times

With an unflinching eye and a nose for the truth, Anjum Hasan's History's Angel explores the many layers of India's turbulent present and the shadows of its storied past

- Jai Arjun Singh

Among other things, Anjum Hasan's elegant and thoughtful new novel is a Delhi book. Its protagonist Alif, a history teacher in his forties, lives in the city with his wife Tahi and adolescent son Salim; so do his parents and a few friends. Delhi in its many forms-from medieval Shahjahanabad to modern Vasant Kunjinforms Alif's wanderings, his thoughts and the narrative. We follow him as he travels from old Delhi (where he lives) to a swanky Nehru Place mall for a meeting with an old acquaintance, and to the Humayun's Tomb, where he takes his students on a field trip; from visiting an aunt in busy and cluttered Mehrauli to meeting a landlord in gated-community Noida.

One soon realizes what an appropriate setting Delhi is for this story. As an old and multi-layered city of ruins, with the ghosts of many pasts and many kingdoms jostling together, the capital is a reminder of how pluralistic this country has been. But as Hasan tells us, this is also a city made "so insistently, so noisily, of now"-full of lessons if you care to look, but ignored by people who are caught up with the chaotic present.

And so it is with history in general too. Alif frets that most people have only a superficial interest in his subject, and that the modern age has created a rift from the past. He wants to make history surprising, non-linear-to show a dynamic India, not a monolith with one destiny (which, though the book only touches lightly on this, is what the Hindu Rashtra is geared towards). But Alif can't afford to look away from his own 'now', for he has just got into trouble because of a student who has provoked and insulted him.