Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis paints a vivid picture of Bombay in its entire pre-economic liberalization splendor through the eyes of a narcotic with a narrative coherence occasionally reminding you that it was written by one. It is not as much a story as much as it is a loving account of people who made Bombay their sojourn during the period of their opium addiction. Thayil casts a longing look at the time he spent being an addict and creates or rather recalls other people he met during that phase of his life. The book also emphasizes the propensity of the authors of today pining for the earthen flamboyance of the India of the past and ruing its loss to a modern globalized India transformed by people interested in monetary benefits. It increasingly appears a loss-loss situation with no one to blame for. 


Narcopolis is a first hand account (though not portrayed so) of Rashid the opium merchant, Mr. Lee a communist refugee from China settled in Bombay and whose pipes are used by Rashid for opium consumption, Rumi addicted to violence and opium. Each of them reveal their stories to Dimple a eunuch who was born a boy but was castrated midway since brothels felt that a eunuch would bring in more money than women. By the author’s own admission these are the characters from the lowest of the low rung of the society who give into addiction like a profession for lack of a better term and he gives them a voice so brutally real and unapologetic about their lifestyles and fetishes.


The prose is typical of a man who has turned himself to prose for the first time after being a successful poet. The mastery over language and the wizardry with the wordplay reminds of Rushdie at some places but towards the later part of the book the expression is distinctive. The book really scores in the detail it bestows on - from how a pipe of opium is made and how it should be smoked for maximum impact to the painstaking lucidity it deals the castration of Dimple with. However the customary Bollywood references that we are used to read in all the Bombay novels, though fun to read, are getting stereotypical. 


While it is not a very difficult read, it can be disturbing at times with its pathos. If not anything else it adds another facet to the great city, which continues to be enigmatic with the stories of the people uncovered day by day and are waiting to be explored.