Hostage

Pshango is a young, black Labrador suddenly abandoned by his human family. So from being a ‘protected’ pet, he is forced to fend for himself on the streets of Delhi, where gang-dogs and gang-humans roam and rule. How he meets up with the Pariah gang (of dogs) and comes to terms with all the changes in his new life are the main themes driving the plot, which is intertwined with a thread involving a set of thieves out to hold a rich man to ransom and the tributary tales of the inhabitants of Peepal Enclave, including an intrepid, lonely girl called Sabiha and a set of Rottweilers that go by the name, Lalaram Louts. Throw in a couple of happy elephants called Komal and Anarkali, an about-to-wed couple called Sleazy and Lovely, some dog catchers and a deadly mean mother-and-son duo who make Sabiha’s life a misery… these are some of the cast of characters, apart from a whole lot of canines named mostly for their personalities.

When two brothers decide to prove how brave they are, everything backfires—literally—in this “pitch-perfect contemporary novel”. Genie’s summer is full of surprises. The first is that he and his big brother, Ernie, are leaving Brooklyn for the very first time to spend the summer with their grandparents all the way in Virginia—in the COUNTRY! The second surprise comes when Genie figures out that their grandfather is blind. Thunderstruck, Genie peppers Grandpop with questions about how he hides it so well (besides wearing way cool Ray-Bans).

How does he match his clothes? Know where to walk? Cook with a gas stove? Pour a glass of sweet tea without spilling it? Genie thinks Grandpop must be the bravest guy he’s ever known, but he starts to notice that his grandfather never leaves the house—as in NEVER. And when he finds the secret room that Grandpop is always disappearing into—a room so full of songbirds and plants that it’s almost as if it’s been pulled inside-out—he begins to wonder if his grandfather is really so brave after all.

Then Ernie lets him down in the bravery department. It’s his fourteenth birthday, and, Grandpop says to become a man, you have to learn how to shoot a gun. Genie thinks that is AWESOME until he realizes Ernie has no interest in learning how to shoot. None. Nada. Dumbfounded by Ernie’s reluctance, Genie is left to wonder—is bravery and becoming a man only about proving something, or is it just as important to own up to what you won’t do?