Prayaag Akbar’s Topological Camouflage

I had heard about Leila in a Newslaundry interview of Madhu Trehan by Manisha Pandey. It’s interesting that all three, including Prayaag are journalists.

As for the topological camouflage in Leila, the language has the ability to camouflage, as much as it has the ability to reveal.
While journalism is mostly about direct communication of what is believed as the Real, literature can be about the indirect, allusions of the imaginary.

Here, the imagination is that of a topology of a dystopian city. It seems like after a post-riot mise-en-scene, not lost on South Asians who had to endure those news shortly after the turn of the century. Subcontinental scars.

Camouflage helps in ducking the surveillance
Like Eugenio Dittborn said, “The most interesting artwork was incomprehensible to the army anyway.”

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