Kulwanti from Delhi, Khaleda Patel from Ahamedabad and Topo Charles Fernandez from Kandhamal… They are from different corners of India but shared one thing in common– haunted by memories of blood, gore and stench of burnt human flesh…..
Kulwanti lost her two brothers when a ‘large tree’ fell in Delhi in 1984. Khaleda narrowly escaped death when a marauding mob attacked her Gulberg society flat in 2002 and Topo’s parents were burnt to death after a swami was murdered in Kandhamal in 2008.
Goldy, the toddler son of Kulwanti, was too tormented by the intimidating face of a white beard man in his nightmarish dreams. All efforts to decipher his dream by Kulwanti failed and the nightmare followed him to his teenage.
On the eventful day in 2014, he goes with his parents to attend the swearing-in ceremony of new Prime Minister of the country and for the first time he saw the same man with white beard in flesh and blood walking on the stage……Goldy, an abandoned child, was the adopted son of childless Kulwanti. Toddler Goldy had seen ‘the man with white beard’ at Shah Alam refugee camp in Ahamedabad when the then Prime Minister visited the camp just after Gujarat riots……
Though not exciting, Shah Alam Khan’s debut novel ‘Man with the white beard’ is a compelling one.