The Fantastic Affair of Despair

As a newborn India wails into existence, a silent woman labours away in the cramped copy editorial department of a postcolonial magazine. Her days are fraught with the chauvinism of her male colleagues, sanctioned by the founder, Chief, who fancies himself a revolutionary. In the evenings, she returns to a near-peaceful cohabitation with her widowed, opium-addled landlady. But her monotonous...