The mysteries of Mumbai : terrorism and banality in sacred games

Abstract

Situated at the intersection of postcolonial studies, affect studies, and narratology, this essay explores the affective and aesthetic consequences of violence and criminality in Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games. I begin by discussing the minor crimes to be found within its pages, before moving on to address various instances of so-called exceptional criminality. The affective state that emerges out of this combination of the banal and the extraordinary, I argue, could best be described by invoking Sianne Ngai's notion of stuplimity, a conjunction of the stupefying and the sublime that ultimately infiltrates the very tissue of the narrative.