From the very first page of A Burning, I found myself drawn in not merely by the apparent simplicity of its writing, but by how that simplicity conceals a complex, quietly devastating plot. Majumdar begins with what appears to be a straightforward story and ends in a manner that feels deceptively plain that lies the book’s real power. The three principal characters Jivan, Lovely, and PT Sir, each begin in distinct orbits. Yet Majumdar skillfully brings them to a single point, much like parallel railway tracks converging in the distance. That illusion of convergence is this novel’s metaphor for how individual lives become intertwined in the machinery of politics, ambition, and injustice.
Majumdar, who studied at Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University, brings to the story a sharp observational eye- born perhaps in her upbringing in the milieu of Kolkata. It is no accident that she sets her debut there, a place of layered histories, competing modernities, and pressing social tensions. Her plot touches not only the personal hopes of her characters, but the broader question of politics: its promise, its betrayal, and how the lives of the marginalised are leveraged by it.
The story starts with Jivan, a young Muslim woman from a Kolkata slum whose father was brutally beaten by the police, leaving her permanently disabled, while their home was demolished. Against this bleak background, Majumdar illustrates how aspirations for upward mobility, such as securing an apartment, a decent job, or medical treatment for a wounded father can be shattered by structural inertia. Jivan gives up her education to support her family, with initial help from her gym teacher PT Sir, who recognises her athletic talent as promising. Lovely, a hijra (third-gender personnel) and Jivan’s English student, also comes from modest beginnings and dreams of Bollywood stardom. These characters start with hope. However, what they face is something darker.
As the book progresses, the pivotal moment arrives. A train in Kolkata is set ablaze by terrorists, Jivan witnesses it, posts on Facebook about the government’s role, sharing utmost frustration and grievance over the inability, and soon finds herself accused of being the perpetrator. Majumdar uses this incident not just as plot engine, but as metaphor: what happens when someone outside the elite speaks up? That voice becomes silenced, and the silencing becomes spectacle. The accusation against Jivan is both absurd and deeply plausible, encapsulating systemic biases that are often overlooked. It is the incident through which Majumdar lays bare how powerless lives are commodified and sacrificed.
Meanwhile, PT Sir’s and Lovely’s trajectories diverge. PT Sir leverages his connection with the ambitious local party to enhance his social standing, Lovely initially offers her honest support to Jivan, only to face a harsh choice between loyalty and her shot at stardom. The novel illustrates how ambition and survival sometimes require complicity in injustice. It rightly highlights the fragility of moral courage as central to Majumdar’s story. While the characters’ arcs differ, the forces pulling them are the same.
Majumdar’s prose is spare yet powerful. Critics online have rightly praised its “arrow-like determination” and “immersive urgency.” She refuses to indulge in melodrama. The characters are human, flawed, and all caught in larger systems they cannot fully navigate. Jivan’s story is perhaps the most heartbreaking because it shows how someone who tries to speak ends up as a scapegoat.
Some might argue that the narrative offers little hope. Indeed, some critics note that while the novel accurately reveals the system’s corruption, it provides minimal space for a redemptive ending. However, I contend this is not a flaw. The absence of easy solutions prompts the reader to face the real experiences of many who do not enjoy that luxury. In this way, the novel carries political and moral urgency.
In the final pages, the weight of the story presses on. Jivan is executed, PT Sir rises to an educational-secretary role through political favour, and Lovely secures her film part, though at a personal cost. Majumdar emphasises that in societies with unequal power distribution, those who remain marginalised pay the price.
I was particularly struck by a passage Majumdar includes presented as a letter from Jivan to her mother after death: “Mother, do you grieve? Know that I will return to you. I will be a flutter in the leaves above where you sit… I will be the stray cloud which shields you from days of sun…” This moment, delicate and haunting, lingers in the reader’s mind long after the last page is turned. It shows that even in terror, even in erasure, there remains a tender insistence on humanity.
For me, A Burning invoked echoes of the Bangladeshi cultural moment around the serialisation of Kothao Keu Nei, when public outrage erupted over the judicial hanging of a wronged character, ‘Baker Bhai’, for a crime he did not commit. The parallel is stark: the law applied unevenly, the marginalised punished indiscriminately, while others escape unscathed. Such is life, as Majumdar reminds us.
In sum, this is a novel that deserves a place not only on bestseller lists but on syllabi and in serious conversations about justice, power and the voiceless. It is a debut that signals the arrival of a bold new writer fully aware of her stakes and her talent. While Majumdar’s second book is already attracting attention, this one remains, in my judgment, a winner.
