''Local'' is a

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

Jaideep Varma Jaideep Varma is an Indian writer, screenwriter and filmmaker. He has made 5 feature films – ''Hulla'' (2008, fiction), ''Leaving Home – the Life & Music of Indian Ocean'' (2010, non-fiction), '' Baavra Mann – a Film on Sudhir Mishra & Oth ...

, written in 2001 (with subsequent drafts) and

published Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

by Indialog Publications in 2005. The book recounts the story of a

white collar White collar may refer to: * White-collar worker, a professional who performs office-based or similar service-based jobs, as opposed to a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor * White-collar boxing * White-collar crime The term ...

employee, Akash, who chooses to live on a

local train Regional rail is a public rail transport service that operates between towns and cities. These trains operate with more stops than inter-city rail, and unlike commuter rail, operate beyond the limits of urban areas, connecting smaller cities a ...

in Mumbai as a

homeless Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, liv ...

man. He does so to solve his accommodation and

commuting Commuting is periodically recurring travel between a place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regular o ...

issues (both massive problems in Mumbai) but also to get relief from a personal pain that being constantly in motion provides him. The contradictions of his two lives (as a multinational employee during the day and a homeless man with no possessions in the night) change him forever. A striking feature of the book is its format: the main

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...

is punctuated by

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

about characters Akash meets both on the train and in his office, with those characters then taking center stage. The book received good reviews when it was published in 2005, but has subsequently gone out of print.

References

2001 Indian novels {{2000s-novel-stub