At the heart of Amal Singh’s latest novel, Slow Burn, is a fantasy shared by perhaps all human beings — of living a bigger, better version of our lives. Only here, Singh uses tropes like the magic mirror and the doppelgänger to complicate this fantasy and ponder over questions of identity, moral ambiguity and self-recognition.  

Set in contemporary Mumbai, Slow Burn is the story of struggling actor Rishi Tripathi who hasn’t been able to make it big despite chasing his dreams for six years. On a bad day, after another audition goes wrong, he punches the mirror in his room only to realise that the act has resulted in him entering a different world. It’s still Mumbai, but a different version. He names this city Mumbai-Right, as opposed to the Mumbai-Left he has left behind. Here, Rishi is Rrish Kumar, a star with many hits to his name.

As Rishi begins to fit himself in the life of Rrish, first cautiously and then with increasing confidence, he understands that despite all the success, fame and money, he wants to go back to being Rishi. But becoming Rishi again isn’t easy, and in his desperation to return to Mumbai-Left, he makes choices that blur the line between Rishi and Rrish.

Tipping a hat to Lewis Carroll

The tropes of the magic mirror and doppelganger are not new, but Singh uses them effectively to peer deep into his protagonist’s psyche. These tropes become instrumental in bringing to the surface the moral grey zones and ambiguities embedded in the protagonist. As Rishi becomes Rrish and Rrish, Rishi, the novel not only plays with the idea of inversion of the mirror image, but complicates it further by inviting readers to make up their minds about whether the mirror actually inverts the image, or simply reveals what is hidden underneath.

This idea of inversion stays alive throughout the novel — whether it’s in the complete change that Rishi’s life undergoes once he passes through the mirror or whether it’s in the altered figure of the mysterious woman on the other side. In Mumbai-Left, the woman seems benevolent, guiding Rishi towards something better. In Mumbai-Right, she carries an unmistakable air of maleficence. In naming the first two sections ‘Through the Looking Glass’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Singh tips his hat to perhaps the best-known work to employ the mirror trope. And by reversing the order of Lewis Carroll’s original titles, he also weaves the theme of inversion into the novel’s very structure.

Slow Burn began as a screenplay, Singh notes in the acknowledgements, and it retains a striking visual quality in its novelistic form. Tightly plotted, it seamlessly blends the real and the fantastical,  creating a world that feels at once familiar and uncanny.  To Singh’s credit, the pace never slackens. Even as it invites readers to reflect on the Rishi/ Rrish dynamic and all that it implies, Slow Burn remains, above all, a tale well-told.

Slow Burn

Amal Singh

Penguin

₹399

The reviewer is an independent writer and translator based in Pune.

Published - August 03, 2026 09:18 am IST