Man on Fire

I was beating the life out of Bibhuti with a baseball bat when my first monsoon broke John Lock has come to India to meet his destiny: a destiny dressed in a white karate suit and sporting an impressive moustache. He has fled the quiet desperation of his life in England: decades wasted in a meaningless job, a marriage foundering in the wake of loss and a terrible secret he cannot bear to share with his wife. He has come to offer his help to a man who has learned to conquer pain, a world record breaker who specialises in feats of extreme endurance and ill-advised masochism. Bibhuti Nayak s next record attempt to have fifty baseball bats broken over his body will set the seal on a career that has seen him rise from poverty to become a minor celebrity in a nation where standing out from the crowd requires tenacity, courage and perhaps a touch of madness. In answering Bibhuti s call for assistance, John hopes to rewrite a brave end to a life poorly lived. But as they take their leap of faith together, and John is welcomed into Bibhuti s family, and into the colour and chaos of Mumbai where he encounters ping-pong-playing monks, a fearless seven-year-old martial arts warrior and an old man longing for the monsoon to wash him away he learns more about life, and death, and everything in between than he could ever have bargained for.