Every time I travel (which is at least once in a month, to and fro Pune-Nagpur), I read at least one story from Jasoosi Duniya and end up reviewing it. It works for me alright as I have been meaning to review all Jasoosi Duniya novels for more than two years. The last trip from Nagpur to Pune was all about Qalandar (3 story series) but I didn’t like it much, so… The review for those stories is still pending.

Anywho… That’s enough of pre-review rant. Let’s dive right into this one–Wabayi Heejan.

The beginning of this story is super hilarious as is the case with most of the Jasoosi Duniya novels. First there is a nice picnic scene followed by theft followed by a kidnapping. We all know something bad will happen as this is a crome story, but the beginning was oh-so-good. The way Ibn e Safi described various special recipes of chicken and pudding and samosa etc was just mouth watering. It didn’t help that I haven’t eaten anything for the past 6 hours, what’s with being at the airport and all.

The next funny bit was Hameed putting on a girl’s make-up while on a task by Colonel Faridi. He mingles with the bad boys, gets them drunk and what follows after is utter chaos, chaos that I loved. Their conversation was downright hilarious.

And the last funny bit was Hameed luring Qasim into an outskirts land and beating him with a danda. That was so creative and so funny…

Until Colonel Faridi interrupted them.

And then the wabayi Heejan begins.

It was so freaking scary, even though we have been through a pandemic already. It was painful to read, #relatable.

The story stopped being hilarious but it was interesting nonetheless. There wasn’t a single time that I wanted to put  the book down. Yeah, this one I read the hardcopy, not the usual pdf.

So, long story short, a highly entertaining, fast-paced and fun story.

5 stars for this one.

Off to read another story which seems like a creepy murder case (not by Ibn e Safi).

 

Shabana Mukhtar