Francesca Carington
Rahul Raina’s debut novel may easily be the most cynical of the year. India’s politicians, endemic corruption, national obsession with the West and above all its super-rich come in for a bashing in How to Kidnap the Rich, a self-consciously feral Tarantino-style joyride through an unlovely Delhi. It’s already been optioned by HBO.
Ramesh, the 24-year-old son of a tea-seller, is an “Educational Consultant” – in other words, he takes exams for rich kids. He’s hired to impersonate an uninspiring teenager called Rudi for his all-important All India exams (“the gateway to the best universities, the brightest futures, the whitest lives”). When he gets the top result in the country – well, the second best, after a Muslim kid, Ramesh notes in a typically acid aside – Rudi is catapulted to fame. He becomes star of a TV show, Beat the Brain, with Ramesh as his manager. Influencer-dom, parties and drugs follow. But when Rudi humiliates a fellow upper-class teen on live TV, it results in his kidnapping – and then more kidnappings on top of that.
How to Kidnap the Rich is funny, if you like your humour abrasive and masculine (Raina’s portrayal of women, as individuals and as a fan demographic, isn’t stellar). Ramesh is a try-hard narrator (“take that, Slumdog Millionaire”), but what stands out in this book is its unapologetic depiction of a Delhi that’s frankly a bit rubbish. “This India, my India, smells like s---. It smells like a country that has gone off, all the dreams having curdled and clumped like rancid paneer.” The smell of Paco Rabanne wafts through Ramesh’s insalubrious encounters; bribery is just as ubiquitous. But there’s a fondness in this biting negativity, which convinces more than the graceful descriptive passages of other India-set novels. Chuck in twists and double-crossings, just the right amount of violence and a denouement in a besieged TV studio and you can’t fail to be entertained.