Debutante author Abdullah Khan on why it took him two decades to write Patna Blues | Lifestyle News, The Indian Express

Debutante author Abdullah Khan on why it took him two decades to write Patna Blues | Lifestyle News, The Indian Express

Written by Surbhi Gupta |Updated: April 25, 2019 6:38:20 am

Debutante author Abdullah Khan on why it took him two decades to write Patna Blues

While the love affair had many critics label the book as pulp fiction and Bollywood-esque, the author says he drew inspiration from the Russian novel Anna Karenina, and wanted to weave a “nice” story set in the Bihari hinterlands and rooted in reality.

Abdullah Khan

While the story of Patna Blues (Juggernaut, Rs 499) revolves around the love affair of a young Muslim boy Arif with a married Hindu woman named Sumitra, the fault lines that run through the story that make it more engrossing. Spanning over a decade, it recounts the young man’s struggle to clear the UPSC examination — echoing the life story of thousands of boys from his state, Bihar. Readers are acquainted with the political environment in Patna post the demolition of Babri Masjid, along with the caste and class differences that run in the society. The mundane affairs of a lower middle-class household in the ’90s – with a sub-inspector father, a brother who wants to make it big in Bollywood, three sisters and a silent mother — add much colour to the story.