Rahul Vishnoi reviews Assassin by KR Meera, translated from Malayalam by J. Devika (published by Harper Perennial India, 2024).
Originally published in Malayalam under the title Ghathakan, the novel Assassin by KR Meera has been masterfully translated into English by J. Devika. While reading book reviews in magazines, I’ve often seen words like ‘tour de force’ and ‘magnum opus’ thrown around lightly as if they were bird feed. Here, in this case, I think the majestic work of the author-translator duo is too burly to be trussed with the wrappings of phrases that could be uttered without breaking your breath or sewing a stitch in your ribs.
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Ripples in the Calm: The Night That Changed Everything
Satyapriya considers herself an ordinary woman. So when one night she escapes a motorcycle-straddled sniper by fluke, she’s forced to dissect her life, take out the parts and reassemble them to investigate why someone would want to murder her. Shaken by the attack, she looks back on what she considered merely to be accidents but could very well be attempts on her life. At least three. She counts the men who could be willing to get her killed: 4, all rejected by her in love.
After the attempt on her life, Satyapriya is shaken. She breaks the fourth wall to ask the reader: ‘Have you ever faced an attempt on your life?’ A pity, if your answer is no!’ Meera writes that the soul experiences a tremendous release in that moment. Body and soul part ways within your living self, taking wing on their separate paths. She opines that it’s better to die at an assassin’s hands than escape. If you do escape, then say ‘swaha’ to the rest of your life. Every face you see after will be suspect. Even your own shadow won’t seem to belong to you. That’s the amount of paranoia Satyapriya is suffering from.
Inquiry or Inquisition? The Intimate Investigation of a Life Alone
The investigation that ensues the post-assassination attempt veers like a drunkard dancing on a bamboo spanning a river in flood. The sub-inspector with ‘swarthy cheeks and eyes that looked as though sorrow had congealed in them forever’ starts asking questions, beginning with the victim’s name, asking her if she isn’t afraid to live alone and shoehorning a question if she’s married or not into the volley. And this line of questioning occurs when the SP knows the victim!
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‘Why are you not married?’
– KR Meera, Assassin
‘Because I haven’t found anyone suitable.’
‘Didn’t you try putting out a matrimonial ad?’
‘No luck.’
‘It is difficult to imagine that no man ever fell in love with a good-looking woman like you.’
I thought for a moment and then said, ‘Luck in love is directly proportional to submissiveness, not beauty.’
As Satyapriya goes back home to meet her bedridden, abusive and villainous father, he dies in front of her after uttering this mysterious phrase: ‘You, too, may be killed any moment.’ Apart from getting paranoid and frightened, Satyapriya is going through a gamut of mixed emotions: “Someone is afraid – the thought gave me a thrill, a certain pride. I realized that the fear one inspired in others builds up one’s sense of security.”
In the Eye of the Storm: Family Feuds and Fatal Words
Her mother, Vansatha, strongly supports Satyapriya’s character. She is a formidable woman, steeled by her husband’s debauchery over the decades.
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Dedicated to slain journalist Gauri Lankesh, Assassin roots its anti-establishment stance by weaving the story eight days after demonetization: 16 November 2016. In the voice of her MC, Meera tells us why: ‘Money, and money alone, protects the woman who lives alone.’
Revising Revulsion: Assassin and Its Chronicling of Contemporary Terrors
I feel that Assassin is inappropriately classified as a thriller and should be rebranded as a horror story. A horror story without ghosts! Because who needs dead people to scare you when you have enough humans to do the bidding of the devil? Disgust, a prominent element of horror, shines through most of the pages. This book did what no book has ever done: it almost made me throw up. And this, I tell you, is no mean feat. When the writer decides to disgust you and achieves that, it’s a momentous achievement. A certain scene with a python simultaneously evokes pity, fear, disgust, sympathy, anger, longing and whatnot!
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If this book were released ten years ago, reviewers would have waxed eloquent, wondering how a woman could write a book dripping with raw violence. Now we know better. If I were to compare KR Meera’s work to other such creations, I would keep it in an auditorium along with the likes of Mario Puzo’s Godfather and Kathryn Bigelow’s Hurt Locker.
Conclusion
Every word, every line of KR Meera’s Assassin, is soaking wet in emotions. Love, hate, disgust, sympathy, longing, self-loathing, grief, affection, nostalgia: you name it, and I will throw page after page of this book upon you. After all, it’s almost 700 pages long, so that won’t be a problem.
In the end, a note on Assassin’s translation. J Devika has lovingly wrapped Meera’s Malayalam magnum opus in English, preserving many words in the process, embroidering them like shiny tchotchkes on her canvas.
Thank you, ladies, for this stomach-splitting treat.
Have you read this horror story that shows a mirror to the darker sides of society and self? If so, comment below and share your thoughts with us!
