The Bellboy by Anees Salim opens on an ominous note. “As they would go to a holy city to die, people came to Paradise Lodge to end their lives.” Thus begins the story of this dilapidated building which has death written all over it and the young Bellboy who happens to work there. Latif, a lad just shy of being 18 likes to dream all day but his mother’s calloused fingers and his father’s death has pushed him to seek this job. And on the very first day of his new job, he watches death up close.

Latif, with his curls sitting neatly atop his ears and his penciled in moustache lives in a sinking Manto island with his mother and two sisters. He doesn’t have friends and so tries to befriend one at the lodge by constructing an imaginary character who happens to be a braver and adventurous version of him. Latif carries secrets within himself like how the manager steals things from the dead and how he has desires that sometimes threatens to explode. And yet trouble keeps finding Latif until the very end of the book.

Latif’s character generates sympathy in the hearts of the readers perhaps this is why the climax of the novel must have taken everyone by shock. The story carries a certain tinge of melancholy to it, coupled with steep observations made by the protagonist. I read in an interview that Anees Salim created Latif from his own experience of knowing such people in real life. No wonder there was certain honesty in his role. A neurodivergent person struggling to gather his bearings in this cruel world.

Although I hadn’t read Anees’s works before, I sense this familiarity in his words. The Bellboy may very well go on to collect few accolades next year and I’ll be cheering on for it.

An absolute brilliant and heartbreaking piece of literature.