Book: ESCAPE FROM KABUL: A TRUE STORY OF ESCAPE AND SURVIVAL

Author: Enakshi Sengupta

Published by: HarperCollins

Price: Rs 399

The presence of the word, ‘escape’, twice is enough to underscore that this book is supposed to have all the elements of a thriller. Set in 2021, during the fall of Kabul, the story follows five women — they work at the Anglo American University of Kabul — as they try to get out of the city alive.

This ‘true story’ is narrated by these five women — Anjali, Cathy, Nadia, Zohra and Fawzia — and told through a “fictionalised account of real events”. Their narration is broken into six parts with each part dwelling on the women’s back stories, their preparations for escape, their attempts to do so and, finally, an epilogue of sorts that wraps up their current situations.

Those taken in by the blurb that promises “an extraordinary first-person account of a sisterhood in crisis” would feel short-changed. The use of the third-person narrative with that invisible, omniscient narrator only exacerbates the sense of distance between plot and reader. The term, sisterhood, too, seems inappropriate: this is a bunch of women who were mere co-passengers during a shared journey.

The “crisis” that the five women found themselves in is dramatic. But the narration only serves to emphasise the fact that real life seldom lives up to the drama of thrillers. Astonishingly, for one character, it seems as if all the drama, trials and tribulations could be solved by just one phone call to an army leader from her country along with a two-hour drive.

Not all the character arcs are given the same treatment. Zohra, Fawzia and Nadia, in particular, leave an impact. Nadia and Zohra, with their immense drive and thirst for a better life, are relatable characters who could do with more elaboration.

Despite it all, the book piques one’s attention and is a quick, breezy read in spite of its overused aphorisms.