I have been reading with great pleasure the stories in Delhi Noir, edited by Hirsh Sawhney, and published by Akashic Books in its noir series. This is a book that I recommend highly, and not only because it introduces writers about whom many have so far remained in the dark.

Why write about the night if you cannot write about dirty money? Each of the stories I have read in the book so far have done precisely that. But more than that, I felt that the stamp of the genre had allowed the writers to experiment with a voice. So that the description “Delhi noir” means the achievement of a style, and that style is partly the place that is being written about. Here are some lines that have stayed with me from the stories I have read: “She places a goodbye tongue in his mouth, like she’s depositing cash at a government bank—rightful, superior, slightly disdainful of the clerk on the other side of the counter—and goes” (Ruchir Joshi, “Parking”); “The guns looked so much smaller than in the movies” (Meera Nair, “Small Fry”); “So right now, with his left hand Jishnu da was ‘making baingan bharta,’ in his own immortal words” (Siddhartha Chowdhury, “Hostel”); “So if you read this story, go and buy a little pickax and get yourself to Delhi right away. It’s not far at all, and it’s the only way left to make it big. The other ways you read about in the papers and see on TV are rumors and lies, nothing more” (Uday Prakash, “The Walls of Delhi”).

There are more stories waiting for me in the book. Maybe tonight. With the ice cracking in the glass beside me.

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