An Incarcerated Indian Boy Chasing Sky Scrap


BORN BETWEEN BARS
by Padma Venkatraman

Born in 2013 in an Indian prison, a 19-year-old teenager managed to use his sewing clothes to save his mother. Turns out he only needed $180 in bail money all this time.

The story drew attention to India’s brutally inefficient criminal justice system and planted a seed in the mind of Padma Venkatraman, a middle-class novelist (and oceanographer). stories about marginalized but brave children those who must learn to navigate on their own in a world where well-being is strictly rationed.

The first episodes of Born Behind Bars introduce us to the limited world of Kabir, who can see a bit of sky from the cell where he and his mother – his mother – slept on the floor mat. It goes without saying that the conditions were dire. But Kabir’s inner world is rich. She has special nicknames for other inmates: Granny Knife, who has a “sharp tongue” and can kill a mouse with a stone, and Aunt Cloud, who is out of her mind.

The book begins with the news that on Kabir’s ninth birthday, a new strict guard has decided that he is too old to stay any longer. A kind prison teacher tries to prepare him for the outside world by explaining practical things like how to get on the bus. Amma warns him to never reveal where he was born. But the most helpful advice comes from Granny Knife, who says you have to trust your instincts—and don’t be afraid to throw a stone at someone who’s trying to hurt her.

A lesson Kabir will need soon. She is picked up by a man presumed to be her uncle, but has a plan to sell her as a slave. He escapes with the help of a clever girl and her clever parrot. “What a strange world we live in,” she says when she hears his story. “They lock beautiful mothers. But men who buy and sell children can roam freely.”

A girl named Rani and the parrot Jay become Kabir’s friends and make his accelerated route through the harsh realities of street life in Chennai feel like an adventure. Rani gently mocks Kabir, the “Prince of Complainers”; teaches him how to sleep in a tree; and eventually joins his quest to find his true family and help his mother.

Venkatraman has never encountered a heavy theme that he dislikes – Kabir’s amma, who was mistakenly accused of stealing a necklace, has been abandoned by the outside world in part because he is a Hindu married to a Muslim man. Kabir is low caste and the Rani are the Kurava, a traditionally nomadic people once known as the Gypsies; Both suffer from prejudice and economic hardship. At the climax of the story, the boys stumble upon a scene of mafia violence against Tamil-speaking people fueled by conflict over scarce water in a warming world.

Somehow, it all manages to feel like a story rather than a review. There are moments when Venkatraman wishes his dialogues and motifs, including a dead butterfly, were a little too revealing. But much of “Born Behind Bars” has a confidently stripped-down, crystal style, with ultra-short segments that get the action in motion and details like the permissive Rani’s pedigree song and Kabir’s first barefoot step onto the smooth, clean tile. speak for oneself, quietly. Borrowing elements of fairy tales, it is told with recurring awe by a boy who for most of his life thought the world existed only in stories.



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