They are like props in a play where the attention is focussed elsewhere. In any event, it is difficult to care for either Anjum or Tilottama because their lives never truly unfold. But Tilo’s heart belongs to Musa Yeswi the Kashmiri militant. He bears an uncanny resemblance to the overbearing and recently discredited Arnab Goswami of the ‘Nation wants to know' fame. There is Naga the compromised journalist who Tilo eventually marries. Roy had met Cunha while at architecture college, and subsequently had a relationship with him. One can’t help wondering if Garson - whose unrequited passion for Tilo is only resolved by Tilo disappearing from his life - is (at least in part) Gerard da Cunha. He begins telling Tilo’s story in first person but somewhere along the line, Tilo’s story is told in third person. There is the long-suffering 'Garson Hobart' who she meets while at the 'Architecture School'. I could imagine small birds nesting in it.’ In fact the desultory nature of Tilo’s life, a tenant in a Delhi barsati, and its sporadic freefall into precarious penury, runs parallel to Roy’s own early adventures of living on the fringes. In her place, appears the South Indian Syrian Christian Tilottama (Tilo), who it must be said, bears a striking resemblance to Roy, ‘her long, thick hair was neither straight nor curly, but tangled and uncared for.
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