What makes it particularly interesting is the background of the author. Omair Ahmad is a young political analyst and essayist who has worked on three continents, but has his roots in Gorakhpur. There is a sense of alienation, angst and anger among the Indian Muslim middle class today, and you have to be one to know it. Or else you have to have someone like Ahmad with the intelligence and the sensitivity to convey it to you. In fact, the novel’s authenticity makes one wonder if there isn’t at least a tiny touch of autobiography about it. Encounters is not a pretty book, and you might not like what it has to say (I did not like its underlying political statement myself). But that is perhaps why it needs to be read today.

I have a feeling that we are going to hear more about this author in the future. And I also somehow get the feeling that his next book may not necessarily be a novel.