Bandicoots in the Moonlight

Book excerpt: &Lsquo;I Grew Up In A Place Where Every Student Appearing For The School Finals Was Accompanied By Four Experts Who Wrote The Answers Outside Before They Were Smuggled In. Where Buying A Train Ticket Was Uber Uncool Because Only Cowards Paid To Travel. Where Dating A Woman Was Unheard Of But Mating Was Commonplace, And Where The Loss Of Male Virginity Often Had Something To Do With Goats . . .&Rsquo; Teenage Boy Anirban Roy Grows Up&Mdash;Not A Lot Wiser&Mdash;In A Small Town In &Rsquo;70S Bihar Where His Policeman Father Is Posted To Pick Up Intelligence On The Looming Naxalite Menace. Ganesh Nagar Possesses Neither Village Simplicity Nor Urban Slick But Observes A Line Of Ethics That Defies Codification. It Takes Time For Anirban To Learn To Juggle Adolescent Angst And Ping-Pong Hormones, Loyal Friends And Part-Time Criminals, A Bewildering Succession Of Topsy-Turvy Lessons In Life And Lust, Yet Manage To Keep The Balls In The Air. There Are Close Encounters With Animals, Too: Experiments With Reptiles; The Sighting Of Bandicoots In Full Flight, Their Sleek Coats Gleaming In The Moonlight; The Hazards Involved In Stealing A Parrot Nestling; The Part Played By A Domestic Fowl In Curing Snakebite And Predicting Death; And The Unusual Role Of Donkeys In Satiating Adolescent Lust. Rites Of Passage Never Got So Down And Dirty As In Journalist Avijit Ghosh&Rsquo;S Earthy Account Of Boy-To-Manhood In Fictional Ganesh Nagar, An Introverted District That Could Exist In India Anytime, Anywhere.