Book Review: 'Chikkamma Tours (Pvt.) Ltd' By Unmana Is A Breezy Yet Bold Mystery Ride

It is interesting to see Indian authors take up writing mysteries with a thought-provoking angle. Chikkamma Tours (Pvt.) Ltd: A Bibliomystery by Unmana falls under this category. While the book has all the trappings of an engaging mystery, you are also shown the queer world through the lead character, Nilima Deka, a lesbian trying to sort her personal life out.

Cranky Nilima, a lesbian with a serious book addiction, has a silent crush on her boss Shwetha, who runs the tours with a difference and has baggage of her own. She is trying to make Shwetha notice her while being irritated by her colleague Poorna and focusing on her life. Nilima unwittingly stumbles upon the dead body of Jagat Desai, the first-floor bookshop owner. She sees her chance to become a detective and gets noticed by Shwetha. In this mystery solving, she also has to take help from Inspector Laxmi, the present girlfriend of her ex-girlfriend.

Amidst this Unmana, an Agatha Christie fan since their childhood, was always keen to pen a murder mystery. “In fact, I’d started writing crime fiction as a child, and had three teen detective stories published as a book by Writer’s Workshop in 1999, when I was seventeen. Around fourteen years ago, I started working on a murder mystery novel. I had the heroine finding a body in a dim stairwell in her office building, and deciding to investigate with her friend. I lived in Pune at the time, and the story was set in Pune. But it didn’t work, and I abandoned it.”

A ten-week writing course attended in 2017 in Bengaluru set up by Anjum Hasan, Eshwar Sundaresan and Zac O'Yeah saw Zac's class tell the attendees to write a page set in old Bengaluru. They narrate, "And as the only person in the class who didn't live in Bangalore and very much wanted to impress Zac, I leaned on my reading of novels set in Bangalore and on my love of dialogue to create a funny little scene (which still exists, almost intact, in the book) about a character pitching a literary tour of Bengaluru to her boss and a colleague interrupting with a more pragmatic idea. And Zac encouraged me to write the rest of the novel. I took his advice. I kept the characters and brought in the basic mystery plot I had abandoned a few years earlier. This time it worked."

And it does work. Chikkamma Tours is a gripping tale from the start despite the inroads into Nilima's turmoil. While solving the mystery, you travel and notice things through Nilima’s eyes. The pace is fast but doesn’t leave you panting. You still notice what Nilima is trying to see. Of course, you also see Bengaluru through her eyes. A trip without spending any money!

What a reader might take with them are the characters who are crisp enough for you to picture them. While some might have an issue with the character sketches, I found them enough and real for a mystery that doesn't require lengthy descriptions. It is especially true with regards to a queer like Nilima. They are never protagonists or presented well in books. Unmana mentions, “I think I dared to think of these characters because I started by writing a scene and hadn't planned to write a novel. At the time, I remember thinking I wanted characters who I hadn't seen in fiction but who felt real to me, who acted and talked and looked like me and my friends. Once I decided to write a novel, I realised that I had a responsibility to take these characters seriously. Queer women have not solved fictional murders in Indian books before. I didn’t want my characters to be plot points or punch lines, I wanted them to feel like real people.  

What I loved is that the story is uncomplicated despite the murder mystery and Neelima’s struggle with opening her sexuality to others. You don’t have to be queer to know her emotions. You focus on the investigation she, Shwetha, and Poorna did together. Of course, some splash of humour makes it an entertaining read. The only unsatisfactory aspect is the way the mystery ends. Some blast would have worked. 

Chikkamma Tours (Pvt.) Ltd: A Bibliomystery by Unmana can be your perfect book for the weekend. And you will come out with a thrill just the way necessary after reading a mystery book.

Details:

Book: Chikkamma Tours (Pvt.) Ltd: A Bibliomystery 

Author: Unmana 

Publisher: Tranquebar

Pages: 250

Price: Rs 499