Black Tongue

Set in contemporary Communist-ruled West Bengal, Black Tongue explores the story of a young servant girl and her employer whom destiny brings together in an intricate dance of love and hate. Street-smart and sassy, sixteen-year-old Maya has aspirations beyond her means. In the belief that her black tongue has wrecked Amrita’s beautiful world, hate begins to simmer within Maya. One day, she disappears and Amrita, Maya’s employer and a social worker, is charged with her death. The ubiquitous Party also begins to investigate the ‘murder’. In a bid to save herself, Amrita turns to her ex-lover Paresh, the minister’s right-hand man. Meanwhile, Maya’s brother, Naren, a cadre worker, sniffs an opportunity to make a fast buck. Is all this part of a big sinister plan? Or is someone being shielded in the commotion? Through this novel, Anjana Basu explores the contradictions that connect middle-class Kolkata and its urban slums with the rural West Bengal. As the events unfold, the story looks askance at a strange but recurrent socio-political phenomenon typical of West Bengal: pre-modern superstition existing in the interstices of an enlightened political apparatus.