Bioscope Man

Calcutta's glory is fading as the imperial capital moves to Delhi, but Abani Chatterjee's fortunes are rising. He seems set to become the country's first silent-screen star. Then an absurd personal disaster strikes, the kind that keeps recurring in the Chatterjee household, and Abani is cast out of the world of the bioscope.

In a city that has lost its power and prestige, and in a family house falling into disrepair, he wraps himself in solitude and denial, a gift he inherited from both his parents. In 1920 the German director Fritz Lang arrives to make a film about the eighteenth-century Orientalist Sir William Jones. Abani is offered a part, but persuades Lang to film the story of Pandit Ramlochan Sharma, Jones's Sanskrit tutor, instead. Naturally, Abani takes the lead.

The resulting film, The Pandit and the Englishman, echoes the themes of Abani's own life: the dangers of pretence and of turning away, the virtues of lying and self-deception, and the dizzying pull of fame and impossible affections. Afterwards Abani writes a long letter telling his story. Indrajit Hazra's novel is that letter, witty, at times dark, and always entertaining.