Age of Vice

“What they know is this: he’s not a rich man, not a rich man at all, rather a facsimile, a man dressed in the imitation of wealth […] the clothes, the well-groomed features, the car that cannot hide the essential poverty of his birth; its smell is stronger than any liquor or cologne.”

Social stratification is an essential component of the novel’s universe. People, like the policemen in the above quote, can immediately discern wealth and poverty despite appearances to the contrary. Ajay is well-dressed and found behind the wheel of an expensive car, but the cops know he is a staff member of a wealthy person and not the owner of the car. Perhaps they also subconsciously sense that a truly wealthy person would never allow themselves to be found in such a compromised position. Their privilege would protect them from being incriminated at all costs.

“This story becomes fact.”

The alacrity with which the cops conclude that Ajay killed the pavement-dwellers shows their eagerness to pin the crime on him and the power of false and convenient narratives. Repeated often enough, such narratives take on the sound of truth.

“Before Ajay took a breath he was already mourned.”

This bleak line is an example of Kapoor’s spare yet lyrical prose style, as well as her grasp of harsh social realities. Ajay is born in a poor Dalit family in Eastern Uttar Pradesh; he is already so marginalized that the odds seemed stacked completely against him. The fatalism of the above quote echo the novel’s exploration of ordained destiny and cyclical time.

“Then tendrils sprout and the night is done, the yolk of a sun cracks over the peaks and the blue death that filled the final hours is cast away.”

After 8-year-old Ajay spends a terrified night being transported in a cage kept in a truck, the dawn offers some relief. Here, Kapoor uses metaphor, where something is compared to something else without using “like” or “as.” Dawn is compared to a sprouting plant, while the sunrise is implicitly compared to the spreading yolk of a cracked egg. These lines are an example of how Kapoor balances action-packed narration with moments of lyricism.

“And he discovers something else. It gives him pleasure to please, it gives him pleasure to anticipate every possible need, not just Mummy’s and Daddy’s but everyone’s, the farm workers’, the animals’, the shopkeepers’ pleasure. Not just pleasure, not really, more like a stanching of wound, more like the holding of a tide, a sacrifice, negating the trauma of his birth.”

One of the themes the novel explores is the rippling effect of trauma. The violence and dislocation Ajay has suffered makes him dissociate from his own pain. By serving others, Ajay distracts himself from the enormous hurt within. The above lines also serve as foreshadowing: Ajay’s habit of negating himself to please others will one day lead him to take the fall for someone else’s murder.

“But some of the foreigners begin to grumble. These Indians, some say, don’t understand their own culture; they have been infected by the West. It’s a sad sign, how they’ve lost their way.”

The India depicted in the novel is set in the last few years of the 20th century and the first decade of the new millennium. The country is being transformed into a major economic power and is beginning to overcome the wounds of colonialism. Rich Indians like Sunny have as much economic power as white tourists and do not treat white people with deference. This shift in power annoys some of the foreign travelers in Manali. The attitude of the foreigners reflects the tendency to exoticize the global East. When the East does not fit into a preconceived notion, it is seen as having adopted Western culture.

“They find his eagerness extraordinary, sometimes endearing, sometimes a little pathetic. Someone comes up with a new name. Puppy. Puppy’s here.”

Sunny’s Manali crowd treat Ajay in a patronizing and dehumanizing manner, similar to the way the global West can sometimes view the global East. The attitude of Sunny’s friends reflects the pernicious tendency of a hierarchical society to see its working class as invisible or clownish.

“And smile. You’re a Wadia man now. No one will ever steal from you again.”

Ajay was robbed on his way to Delhi. Tinu, the household manager of the Wadias, assures Ajay he will never again be treated as badly as he is under the protection of the family. Not only is Tinu’s statement false; it is also unconsciously ironic. Being a Wadia man will actually subject Ajay to much worse than a robbery: It will land him in jail for murders he did not commit.

“‘Is this your first time in Goa, Ajay,’ she says.

It comes out of the blue.

He likes it when she uses his name.

‘No madam.’

There is safety in calling her madam.”

Neda is one of the rare people in Sunny’s set who refers to Ajay by name. Ajay feels seen and heard by Neda. However, class dynamics dictate that he is not her equal. By calling her “madam,” Ajay stays on the right side of social mores; he protects himself from Sunny’s potential displeasure as well as any inner delusion that these mores do not matter.

“Nonsense. The sun is positively perpendicular. By any civilized metric it is reasonable to expect wine.”

Kapoor uses distinct narrative voices for different characters. Gautam Rathore’s obnoxious, urbane, quasi-British voice indicates his deep privilege, as well as his disdain for the larger world. Hours after he has killed the pavement-dwellers, he argues that a hotel staffer get him wine in the early morning. Talk of a “civilized metric” after he has taken lives shows Gautam’s moral rot.

“‘Once you’ve been to India,’ he shouts, ‘you’re not the same. It gets under your skin.’

No shit.”

Neda makes a deeply ironic aside to herself—“No shit”—after a white man in London tells her about the affecting power of India. This is an example of Kapoor’s use of dark humor. While the man is offering a tourist’s view of India’s chaotic and complex reality, Neda has witnessed this reality far too up-close. It is also funny that the man should explain India to an Indian woman.

“‘I’m a journalist. I write for the Post.’

He met her gaze. ‘I better watch what I say.’

‘I’m off duty,’ she said.

‘No one’s ever off duty.’”

The snappy exchange between Sunny and Neda shows their instant chemistry, and is an example of Kapoor’s use of brisk, buzzy dialogue. Sunny’s assertion that no one is ever off duty echoes the novel’s exploration of social appearances and the need to be constantly watchful in a corrupt, deceitful world.

“I love beauty. I want to create beautiful things. But that’s the last thing they understand. They want me to have a beautiful surface and be rotten to the core, like they are.”

Sunny’s statement to Neda reflects his youth and misplaced idealism, as well as the pressure his father’s toxic masculinity exerts on him. Sunny wants to genuinely break away from his family business. His father, on the other hand, wants him to only pretend to do so while carrying on with ethically compromised business practices. The inherent contradiction in Sunny’s position is that he wants to use his father’s wealth to achieve his ends, making his idealism hollow.

“‘I love,’ he said, ‘that you never asked if I love you.’

‘I love,’ she replied, ‘that you never needed me to say it.’”

Sunny and Neda’s exchange is an example of the text’s use of repartee to lighten the narrative, providing a reprise between action and violence. The loving exchange reveals the tacit understanding the two characters share. In the morally compromised world they inhabit, Sunny and Neda’s love briefly allows both of them to become greater than who they are.

“I knew injustice when I saw it, in a novel, on the news, but I never understood the process of its creation. I never considered complicity, or the obligation to guard against it in yourself.”

In her unsent draft to Dean, Neda analyzes her own naïveté as well the human tendency to view injustice as something other people commit. Neda explains that she had a bookish understanding of right and wrong before she became embroiled with Sunny. Now she knows that every person of privilege contributes to the injustice of the system that creates privilege in the first place. To be truly moral is to watch out for one’s own complicity in systemic injustice. Neda’s insight reveals she has travelled far from being the slightly shallow, willfully ignorant young person she used to be.

“Why did he save Gautam? He made a decision on the road to save Gautam’s life, to sacrifice Ajay and me and himself in order to keep Gautam safe. Why?”

Neda writes to Dean that at first, she did not understand the reason Sunny framed Ajay to save Gautam. At the time, Sunny was enraged with Gautam for fooling him. Additionally, Ajay had never wronged Sunny. By posing and then answering the question, Neda resolves an important mystery for both herself and the reader. Sunny framed Ajay to show his father he could be as ruthless as Bunty desired. Everything Sunny did was for his father’s approval. Ajay was the right target— framing him showed Bunty that Sunny could sacrifice everything he loved for profit.

“And he, Ajay, says no. The very thought of it is thrilling. He says no. He says: no. It is like the dreams of a blind person who has sight. It’s a deaf person dreaming they can hear. Everything is turned up loud, in color. No.

Why don’t you get in the car?”

The word “no” is repeated in Ajay’s fantasy because to say no is to exercise power. In prison, Ajay imagines his life as a series of saying no, beginning with saying no to Sunny. Ajay’s realization that he can say no is exhilarating. The fantasy of no is still fantasy, since Ajay will soon be doing as he is told to keep his sister safe, but discovering his agency offers some hope for the future. These lines show that having the power to say no, which most people take for granted, can be a privilege and a luxury for the marginalized.

“Ajay holds Karan’s head in the crook of his arm, squeezing it as he digs deeper and deeper with the blade […] Karan is gone.”

Ajay’s killing of Karan is presented in graphic terms, and exemplifies how Kapoor depicts violence in the novel. The killing symbolizes a crucial downward turn for Ajay, eroding his soul.

“No fields to work in, nothing to work together for. People turned to drink. Drugs. All I knew was to work together. Now everyone was just in their own worlds. Buying more cars.”

This statement by Manoj, one of the men who kidnaps Sunny, illustrates the novel’s idea that inorganic, exported development and wealth does more harm than good. Consumerism and wealth cannot bring about social transformation. In the case of Manoj’s family, the money from selling their fields robbed them of their connection to each other and the land, pushing them into decline.

“‘Have more respect, Sunil Rastogi. If you’re not careful. We’ll pin the whole gang on you instead.’ He said this as a terrible threat, but it was a moment of great excitement for me, because in that instant, I had solved the case.”

Sunil Rastogi’s makes this statement to a bound and gagged Sunny, showing his ingenuity as well as how easy it is to manipulate the system. Finding the Chaddi Baniyan gang is difficult. Rastogi decides to create his own Chaddi Baniyan gang to kill three birds with one stone: Complete his assignment and get the cops off his back, satisfy his sadism and lust for violence, and gain leverage over the police officer who would have carried out a false arrest.

“He’s a dog digging a phantom hole. A needle gouging the skin to find a vein.”

Sunny’s moral decay and physical decline are reflected by his newfound lust for cruelty and a dependence on drugs. Sunny chases these highs, yet is unable to achieve peace. Here, Kapoor uses metaphors, comparing Sunny to “a dog digging a phantom hole” and “a needle gouging the skin to find a vein.” This shows how Sunny is trying to bury himself and escape.

“Bored even of his own emptiness, he […] pads through the bedroom door […] out into the cool corridors of his mansion wing, a maze that resembles a museum, little sealed boxes containing artworks: gruesome figurines in the Mojave Desert, a piece of the Berlin wall, a female mannequin in a silk kimono and fencing mask, suspended in the air by kinbaku ropes in the style of Araki.”

One of the novel’s key symbols is signs of luxury and excessive wealth. The description of Sunny’s mansion ties in with this symbolism: The art shows Sunny’s global taste as well as his enormous spending potential. However, there is something sterile and cold about the way the artworks are displayed, reflecting Sunny’s inner hollowness.

“I don’t expect you to marry the man or even the family, I expect you to marry the business.”

Farah, Sunny’s newly wedded wife, recalls to Bunty the promise he made to her while arranging her match with Sunny. Bunty recognizes that Farah is ambitious. He subverts the conventional Indian expectation of a wife marrying the family, not just the person—instead, she will “marry the business.” When Farah marries Sunny, she will have the option of running the Wadia business. Bunty’s proposal shows his astute business acumen, as well as the materialistic ethos of the world he and Farah inhabit.