Neyaz Farooquee
Neyaz Farooquee is a journalist based in Delhi. He was a fellow at the New India Foundation and Sarai-CSDS. He currently works with BBC, and was previously a staff writer at Hindustan Times, and has contributed to the New York Times, Al Jazeera and Tehelka.
NIF Books
19 September 2008, the Batla House encounter. That one day changed the life of a young man from Inderwan Bairam in Bihar's Gopalganj district. An overprotected childhood in the village, an ambitious migration to Delhi as a young boy for better education, an undisciplined and shiftless adolescence-all of this history is flattened out into one tiny slice of Neyaz Farooquee's identity: Muslim. From Jamia Nagar. Who lived practically next door to the Terrorists who had been killed in the encounter. A Potential Terrorist himself? How, after all, does a man prove that he is (and not merely pretending to be) a Normal Human Being?
Sardonic and wise, Farooquee scrapes out the unvarnished truth about identity and stereotypes, about life in a ghetto, and the small and big disappointments that make up an ordinary life.
A necessary book for our troubled times.
Purchase: Amazon
Reviews:
'A dazzling debut by a greatly gifted and remarkably brave young writer' - Ramachandra Guha
'Farooqee has achieved in this book what writers such as Ta-Nehisi Coates have done.'- The Hindu
'[Offers] important insights into the incidental and systemic processes that create alienation and difference.'- New Indian Express
'[S]hould be read by everyone, especially those Hindus and Muslims who seem to have achieved a remarkable … clarity about the "other" community.'- Business Standard