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Title: Spellcasters: A Novel
Author: Rajat Chaudhuri
Publisher: Niyogi Books
Imprint: Olive Turtle
It was dark outside but for a faint yellow glow hanging like a cobweb around the gate lamp. She saw two figures moving stealthily, sneaking up the verandah. They were coming in her direction. As they approached the façade of the house they scanned the wall, and then the pillars.
The two men came right up to where she was hidden behind the window, and one was pointing above their heads at the exterior wall. He was well-built, about six feet, and wore a long raincoat speckled with rain and a cap with a chinstrap. He had something in his hand which looked like a crowbar for jimmying locks. The other man, much shorter, had a thickset brutish face, and he had such a cruel look in his eyes that Sujata gasped when she saw him standing so close. He was carrying a jerrycan. This guy had a vermilion streak on his forehead, and his bucktooth was shining in the faint light.
Will they try to break in? She could call out for help with the hope that someone would hear. But the nearest house belonged to a private school, and there would be no one there except for the caretaker who would be dead drunk. The hotel further down the road was still waterlogged, and the labourers—even if they heard her—won’t be able to make it here in time. Too late to call the police, and then there would be many questions.
The shorter of the two opened the jerrycan and began to splash some liquid on the walls and on the chairs kept outside. Petrol! His partner pulled a tool from his pocket and reached up to the wall. The electricity metres were just above his head. What! They were trying to short circuit the electric wires and start a fire! That’s what she thought they were upto. And when she rushed out, they would shoot her and dump her body into the flames.
She went stiff for a second but was alert right the next moment. With a swift movement she swept away the curtains, pushed the shutter and stood straight in front of the window.
The thuggish-looking character with the jerrycan took a step back at the sound and then he saw her. He gave out a low whistle to warn his companion while trying at the same moment to draw his gun. But whatever happened after that was too fast for him, or anyone for that matter.
It is impossible to provide an exact record. If someone was watching, they would have seen her cross her hands after she swept away the curtains to face the hired hitmen. She joined her hands, crossing her arms in that millennia-old swastika mudra—which they say can even stop the devil in his tracks.
It could have ended there but didn’t. As she made the hand gesture, buck-tooth whistled but he couldn’t draw his gun. An ice shower from another world froze his muscles. He turned to stone, buried as if under an avalanche of ice.
Through that daze he saw the curls of her hair writhe and twist, having come to life, animated and growing longer. Sinuous dark ribbons hissing their way out through the window, hoods raised, fangs exposed. Till there was no one on this side, only these swarthy hissing messengers of death slithering into the verandah.
The taller of the two hearing the other whistle, cursed under his breath, ‘Damn! What is it yaar?’
He glanced to his left but it was all too late. All that Sujata heard as she stepped back was a blood-curdling cry of agony as a blue tongue of fire leapt out from the metre box lashing at the two, flinging them back. Both were knocked out cold. It was only left for the fire to do the rest.
A hot train of sparks charged ferociously through the wires and licked the petrol doused wall. Within seconds the lawn lit up with this eerie blue light. Blue changed to white. Flames shivered like teasing tongues. Now they leapt through walls and doorways, and were streaking across the ceiling of her room in angry crimson arrows.
She threw on her jacket and rushed towards the passage for the kitchen exit. Amitav Ghosh’s book about climate change still lay open on the couch where Chanchal had left it. She stopped, scooped it up and stuffed it into her knapsack. A book is always a good weapon, hardbacks are even better. Below the book was a half-eaten bar of Atman dark chocolate; she had given it to him.
She took a bite and jammed it into her pocket. The curtains in the passage had caught fire from the radiated heat coming from the next room. She made a dash for the kitchen. If it got hot beyond a point, the gas tank would explode. Not another moment to lose!
But the kitchen door leading out to the backyard was jammed. She struggled with the oil and grime-caked bolt, losing precious minutes. Is this how she will go then?
ABOUT THE BOOK
Chanchal Mitra wakes up in a far-off desert town, sharing a dingy hotel room with the flamboyant Mr. Kapoor, who is planning to abduct a billionaire. Kapoor insists that the billionaire tycoon is an impostor. Chanchal is unwittingly drawn into the plot. Soon they are joined by the mystery woman Sujata, her eyes dark like murder; and then a crutch-clutching ex-sailor, who is quick with a gun.
In the smog-swathed capital city of Aukatabad, an organic chemist engaged by the tycoon to design a mind-altering drug, is found dead from an overdose. Elsewhere, the billionaire industrialist’s chocolate factory is contaminated by salmonella while Sujata fights a fiery death at the hands of hired killers. As weird weather overtakes the land and Kapoor sets out with his accomplices to kidnap the businessman, the flimsy lines between friend, foe and lover begin to quickly disappear.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rajat Chaudhuri’s works include novels, story collections, edited anthologies and translations. He curated The Best Asian Speculative Fiction and co-edited the Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures (Asia-Pacific) anthology.
His most recent novel, The Butterfly Effect was twice listed by Book Riot (US) as one of the ‘Fifty must read eco-disasters in fiction’ and among ‘Ten works of environmental literature from around the world’. Acclaimed for its exploration of a ‘Ballardian near-future’, this novel is now taught in Indian, American and European universities. His short fiction has also appeared in the internationally acclaimed climate fiction video game, Survive the Century. Chaudhuri has received writing fellowships from Charles Wallace (UK), Hawthornden Castle (Scotland) and Livonics (India) and residency awards from Arts Council Korea-InKo (South Korea) and Sangam House (India).
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
An internationally acclaimed publishing house, Niyogi Books, established in 2004, has more than 650 titles today. They not only specialize in textual context but also strive to give equal importance to visuals. They purvey a wide range of content on art, architecture, history, culture, spirituality, memoirs, and every aspect, which connects with our rich heritage. Under their umbrella, they have fiction and non-fiction that cover books on social science, cookery, and self-help as well as English Translations of modern classics from different Indian languages. Niyogi Books has recently launched four new Imprints: Olive Turtle (English fiction), Thornbird (English Translation), and Paper Missile (English non-fiction) and Bahuvachan (Hindi Translation: Fiction & Non-Fiction). Also, they have co-published a number of critically acclaimed books with reputed institutions like the British Library, Rietberg Museum Zurich, IGNCA, National Gallery of Modern Art, Ministry of Culture (Govt. of India), National Manuscript Mission, Sahitya Akademi, among many others.
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