Rahul Bhattacharya, “The Sly Company of People Who Care” (2011)

“In the opening paragraph of Rahul Bhattacharya’s first novel, The Sly Company of People Who Care, the unnamed narrator, a former cricket journalist from India, declares his intentions for his life, and thus his story — to be a wanderer, or in his words, ‘a slow ramblin’ stranger.’ That rambling, through the forests of Guyana; the ruined streets of its capital, Georgetown; and out to the borders of Brazil and Venezuela, constitutes the novel’s central action. But its heart lies in the exuberant and often arresting observations of a man plunging himself into a world full of beauty, violence and cultural strife.
It’s impossible, reading Bhatta­charya, not to be reminded of V. S. Naipaul, even if he weren’t referred to several times throughout the story. Naipaul defined the lonely, empty middle ground occupied by the descendants of Indian immigrants living in Africa and the Caribbean who no longer belong to any nation. Bhatta­charya’s narrator, despite having been born and raised in India, occupies similar territory, having given up on his country and the identity that was supposed to come with it. By and large, though, the similarities end there. Unlike Naipaul’s disillusioned protagonists, who stand perpetually outside the world they live in, Bhattacharya’s narrator is thoroughly invested in Guyana and its striking blend of cultures, born out of colonization, slavery and indentured servitude. If anything, he is more reminiscent of Dante in the case of the Commedia, a careful listener and observer who, while in exile, faithfully records the stories that come his way.” [. . .]    –Dinaw Mengestu, The New York Times, May 13, 2011