'A MIRACULOUS NOVEL' MEGHA MAJUMDAR 'PLAYFUL AND PROFOUND . . . USING WRY HUMOUR TO DELIVER A
DEAD SERIOUS MESSAGE' MELISSA FU 'A BONKERS STORY THAT READS LIKE A FINE TEN-COURSE MEAL' GARY
SHTEYNGART A young cinephile leaves his rural village in India with big dreams only to find
himself trapped in menial jobs and forced to work off a debt he may never repay. In a small
farming village in Punjab India a boy crouches over his brother's phone in a rapeseed field
watching clips of Godard's Bande à part on YouTube. His name is Happy Singh Soni and when
he's not sleeping among the cabbages and eating sugary rotis Happy dreams of becoming an actor
one who plays the melancholy roles the sad pretty boys rare in Indian cinema. He plans a
clandestine journey to Europe where he'll finally land a breakout role. After a nightmarish
passage to Italy Happy still manages to find relief in food and fantasy even as he is forced
into ever-worsening work conditions on a radish farm by the syndicate involved in smuggling him
to Europe to pay off the supposed debt they claim he has accrued. While disillusionment amongst
the farm workers rise Happy will find the love - and tragedy - that his favourite films always
promised. At turns funny and heart-breaking sunny and tragic Happy is a formally ambitious
novel about the psychic fissures produced by the splintering of nations and the lovely
generative artful coping mechanisms created by generations of diasporic people. With this
ingenious daringly cinematic debut Celina Baljeet Basra argues for the things that are basic
to human survival: food water shelter but also pleasure romance art and the right to a
vivid inner life.
