The Opium Toffee

Book excerpt: Drugs. Fanaticism. Politics. Patriarchy. Can love overcome all? When India’s top supermodel Shabnam Singh finds her first love Ajit begging on a street in London, she is shocked to know the circumstances that led to it all. As his traumatic life is unravelled through the withered pages of his diary, the story traverses between London’s 90s and the turbulent Punjab of the 80s, and opens a window into Punjab’s disturbing history through a tale of love, faith, betrayal, and misfortune. Offering an intriguing journey through the highs and lows of Shabnam and Ajit’s teenage years, India’s fashion industry and the gaping abyss of drugs, extremism and illegal migration, ‘The Opium Toffee’ is as much about the power of love as it is about India’s dark past.