The Bellboy

by Anees Salim

Latif’s life changes when he is appointed bellboy at the Paradise Lodge – a hotel where people come to die.

After his father’s death, drowned in the waters surrounding their small Island, it is 17 year-old Latif’s turn to become the man of the house and provide for his ailing mother and sisters. Despite discovering a dead body on his first day of duty, Latif finds entertainment spying on guests and regaling the hotel’s janitor, Stella, with made-up stories. However, when Latif finds the corpse of a small-time actor in Room 555 and becomes a mute-witness to a crime that happens there, the course of Latif’s life is irretrievably altered.

The Bellboy is as much a commentary on how society treats and victimizes the intellectually vulnerable as it is about the quiet resentment brewing against religious minorities in India today. With a mix of wry humour and heart-wrenching poignancy, the book narrates a young boy’s coming-of-age on a small island, and his innocence that persists even in the face of adversity and inevitable tragedy.

Genres: India, Fiction

232 pages, Hardcover

Published August 29, 2022

About the author

Anees Salim is an advertising professional and is employed with Draft FCB Ulka. He loves being invisible and lives with his wife and son in Kochi. Vanity Bagh is his second novel.

Reviews

[Seemita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might have missed young Latif if I had met him at a hotel or a lodge; bellboys are, after all, a part of that moving crowd which gathers (almost) no mass. But in Salim’s story, he is the hero. A hero who has a hairstyle like none other, a hero who takes care of his family of three, a hero who is the sole bread-earner of his house, a hero who launches heroic attempts to save strangers, a hero who dreams of a parallel world with a better version of him.

17-years old Latif might have reached that world he so ardently used to narrate to Stella – his colleague at Paradise Lodge and only friend – had he not been at the wrong place when the suicide of an actor happens at Room No. 555. Or might he have not?

Like a rusted window rail I have long leaned on, 'The Bellboy' gnawed at my skin slow, almost going unnoticed, until suddenly, the gash felt raw and bleeding. When one after the other, everything he loved and treasured – Ibru, his mother, his sisters, Jesus, white shirt, Stella, his father, his memories, his job, his house – falls prey to the cunning of the powerful, the loathing of the majority and the rot of the system, I realized this is far from a story.

Almost vanished - the stamp on many a destinies that cradle in the lap of poverty and minority with no certain hours of sleep. This book gently, inch by inch, pushes to the fore, destiny of such a man.

When I turned the last page, a sodden, beaten lump of melancholy dropped into my being at the rude reminder of these almost vanished heroes – those who do most things in order but look up to suddenly realize the order has changed.

But they chug along. Like Latif did. In a jeep. To a place that shall change him forever.

---

Also on my website.

[Krutika · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Tanuj Solanki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anees Salim's storytelling nous ensures that The Bellboy is an engaging and rewarding read. There is a potent heart-punch at the end, a turn of events that might satisfy definitions of classic 'tragedy,' but the pleasure (or sorrow) in reading this novel is distributed throughout its length. As a writer one notices the labour undertaken to construct a 'complete' world, and the way in which the novel's events are 'choreographed'; as a reader one can't help but appreciate the unique slant of observation given to the main character, Latif, whom the third-person narrator is closest to.

This distance (b/w narrator and protagonist) remains constant throughout. We are given what Latif observes, what he feels, but it's not like there's a microchip inside his head that's doing the telling. There are descriptive flourishes; similes abound. A majority of them work like magic, especially when we feel that they come from Latif's experience. Eg. Ecologists on a boat are 'like children roused from sleep and rushed out on a picnic.' Their bags, when lowered to the floor, clank 'like sacks of nails.' Riverwater's taste is bland and rubbery, 'like over-chewed bubblegum.' That said, some similes cause a modicum of doubt, for it is unclear if the likenesses are conjured by Latif or the narrator. At one point, furniture in a room is 'like antique pieces on sale', making us wonder if Latif has ever attended such a sale. A boat's horn is 'like a hurriedly composed requiem.' A gulmohar tree at a particular time stands 'like a back-lit cut out.' Note that the 17/18yo Latif is from a hand-to-mouth family, on a time-consuming first job as a bellboy in a falling-apart hotel, in charge of providing for his mother and two sisters. Perhaps the fact that he sometimes watches television at his neighbour's house, which is to say that not all his experience comes from the world that is rendered before us, can be justification for these 'outliers' (they may be that only for me).

Salim handles the implicit-translation nature of the novel well. We are reminded many times that Latif cannot understand an exchange between two other characters because it is presumably happening in English. Even otherwise, the direct speech in the novel doesn't draw attention to itself, something that can imperil the idea of implicit translation.

The Bellboy is easily one of the year's best Indian novels and should be keeping the prize people busy when the time comes.

[Yoshita Sood · Rating 4 out of 5]

listening to Lana Del Ray while I finish this book was not the best choice strategically

[Rahul Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book 2 months ago because I had heard of the author but never read any. I skimmed through his titles and zeroed in on his latest. Published in 2022, this is Anees Salim's 7th novel. In an unnamed, quite costal village/town, we meet Latif. He is 17. His father has recently passed away. His mother's hands have decayed from work at the cashew factory. He is forced to take up a job of a bellboy at the hotel across the river. The hotel is creepy. People go there either for sex or suicide. Latif witnesses both until one death that shakes him viscerally. Frankly, I was astounded when I began reading it. It seemed to read like a shortstory I had written last year of a young receptionist who is curious about a couple in a shady hotel. Even the room number in one instance was the same- 209! But Salim's novel is different. It goes beyond the curiosity of the youth and brings in some interesting discussions on the island's ecology, its death itself. It gives a wholesome experience of Latif, a young boy who is alienated by the world and yet feels caught in its throes. From scuffles to memories of his dead father, they haunt him, making him into a spectre that his life is turned into since he's started work at the hotel. He wants to be free from it but in many ways, he isn't or can't be. There was so much to learn from the book in terms of writing a story keeping both plot and character at the edge. Salim succeeds in manufacturing a pace that is apt and uncontested for a dreamy novel of such kind. His writing is clear, untainted by too many descriptions and disturbances. It had the perfect ingredients for a perfect novel, to me. However, I was quite taken aback with the melodramatic end. I also had some issues with Latif's characterisations. It read like he was *made to* appear complex, underneath he wasn't so. I know that's a peculiar way of judging a character but it was just that. I could see through Latif after a point and I felt that was not what I expected when the novel began. Nonetheless, I look forward to reading more of Anees Salim in the years to come.

[Madhubrata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leaves you with a strange feeling. Very realistic/contextual in today's India without trying to be a Novel of Our Times. We see from Latif's perspective, till we are led to see from more. Reality as a steady stream that flows outside the narrative, and then crashes in. To reiterate, strange.

[Sneha Ratakonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars for me!

Latif is the new bellboy at the Paradise Lodge, where people come to die and are mostly successful. He takes the ferry to the town from his home on a small island, spies on the guests and makes up stories for the maid Stella. This book is a coming of age book of a neurodivergent boy, in a world which is cruel to the weak, the minorities and the poor. The end is absolutely heartbreaking and really shakes you. The writing is from the perspective of Latif and has an innocence through it, which goes a long way in the reader developing a empathetic connection with the character.

[Devanshi Sanghani · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I started reading this book, I was intrigued by the character of Latif. At a very small age of just 18 he was burdened with becoming the sole bread earner of the house, a very delicate age where a boy like himself is just finding out his own identity. Having lost his father, mother suffering because of her health and two small sisters to feed, Latif started working in a Lodge in the town. Taking the boat from his island when the day broke to the Lodge, becoming the bellboy of a place that frequently noticed deaths had become the life of Latif for earning the livelihood for his family.

Latif’s naivety surprised me. I liked how the Author detailed the scenarios surrounding the protagonist and even the things that went inside the head of the character. I was liking this book until the end when I found out that the book was made political by the Author on purpose. The ending had communal colours which was disappointing and unnecessary which could have been avoided. As for my opinion, the main protagonist of the story should have spoken up in the end, at least tried protecting himself from the darkness that he was being pushed into.

[Ankur Jamwal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unconvincing.

[Shumaila Taher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seventeen-year-old Latif arrives at Paradise Lodge—a hotel he refers to ‘as a house of decay and death’, and where, to put it mildly, people come to die. In typical Anees Salim MO, this coming-of-age novel, dispels the reader headfirst into pits of extreme melancholy, and despair. After the death of his father, as the only man of the house, the responsibility to fend for his mother and sisters falls on Latif. With no other choice, he forays into the world of the dead, where lives are lost and given away, willingly and unwillingly, in a place that has ‘the appearance of a demented old man,’. 

 

The novel dances through the eyes of our neurodivergent protagonist, Latif, who belongs to Manto island, which is slowly sinking. Despite the constant ominous atmosphere at the lodge, he soon gets accustomed to the vagaries of his job. He befriends the hotel janitor, Stella, who becomes a pleasant companion to him on their lunch breaks, and also the recipient of his unending stories about his imaginary friend, Ibru. Life takes the shape of mundanity as Latif experiences the bizarre unfolding of events at the lodge. The vulnerability of being thrown into an alien environment so early in life, to be exploited by those in power, and to witness death so closely as a young boy, alters his life in terrible ways. It is not just death that looms large on every page, but how Latif is inevitably caught in the web of deceit, exploitation, and lies. 

 

Salim’s astute narrative, wry humor and brilliant storytelling, color the novel with a sense of foreboding and dread. Not just this, his writing is unperturbed by the gravity of the premise. It comes as no surprise that this novel islands itself with political undertones, the environmental decay, how the powerless are always the scapegoat, and how any attempt to overturn their fate is crushed by the heavy boots of the hierarchical order. 

 

Anees Salim takes the readers into uninhabited corners, exposing society’s fallacies, and giving a platform to the unheard, in a way that’s unforgettable and deeply impactful. 

[Dhwani Advani · Rating 4 out of 5]

“𝘈𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘨𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘦, 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴.”
With this ominous declaration begins the story of our 17-year-old protagonist- Latif.

After his father’s death in a heroic attempt to save Manto Island’s ecologist, Latif must take on the terrifying responsibility of becoming the ‘man of the house’ and he thus begins his job as a bellboy at the eerie Paradise Lodge which is shrouded by mystery and darkness.

With simple storytelling and evocatively unsettling visuals, Annes Salim narrates this innocent yet haunting coming-of-age story. It also encompasses a necessary social commentary over how our society continues to harbour resentment towards the minorities and exploit the illiterate.

“His heart sank when he noticed a saffron thread on the manager's left wrist; it somehow suggested that no matter how doggedly he worked, he would be constantly frowned upon.”

He is constantly reminded of his hierarchy in this society in several instances such as how he is always to sit on the floor, away from the carpet, or how he is always given water in a steel cup reserved for him.

Latif is an innocent and resolutely determined boy trying to find his way in a cruel world that never ceases to throw tragedies upon him. To make up for his lack of friends, he creates a heroic alter-ego for himself - Ibrahim. He soon befriends the janitor at Paradise Lodge, Stella; to whom he excitedly narrates the tales of Ibroo’s adventures.

The novel has an eerily melancholic tone, and one feels immense empathy for Latif as we see his simple naivety cruelly exploited by those in power.
There is a constant theme of foreboding and death recurring throughout the story. The death of Latif's father, the suicides at the lodge, the impending death of the island.

The ending hits you like a heart wrenching punch, leaving you dazed and in shock.
A gritty story that embodies a raw reflection of our malevolent society. A brutal tale of our realities.

[Debojit Sengupta (indianfiction_review) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anees Salim's "The Bellboy" will make you feel guilty.

Guilty of feeling amused with the unfortunate life of Latif. The 17 year old boy who lives in a dilapidated house with his widowed mother and two young sisters in a sinking Archipelago where nothing interesting exists, life is mundane to the point the place almost feels like trapped in time. The air is thick with gloom and earth is rife with desolation, an uncomfortable backdrop for the reader. But, as you step into the mind of our boy Latif, there settles a curious sense of amusement in your mind.

Latif is honest, curious, friendly, lonely, eager to become a man but embarrassed to lose face, a regular 17 year old with a clean heart but a harsh life. He gets a job as a bellboy in Paradise Lodge, a place where there is a suicide every once in a while. The place is as sad as it gets, the corridors are dark, the windows are dirty, the lift is squeaky and the Manager is the devil in disguise. Only respite is Stella, a middle aged cleaner lady who befriends Latif and listens to his fantastical stories. Events are narrated in all seriousness, but reading it from a perspective of a kid make them feel trivial somehow. You start expecting Latif to ride the storm and get to the end of the narrative where sits a big reward for all this suffering. You somehow become sure of it. As if you are expecting a positive reward for reading through the hard stuff yourself.

But it never comes, in the end we are sucked into a dark pit of emotional hellhole. I secretly cried inside, I actually did not feel like reading more when things start to turn for the worse in the end. The end will leave you with this empty feeling, as if the story took everything from you and gave nothing in return. I do not remember if I felt this way after reading any other book.

[Samkiti Jain · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled to find the point of this book. Latif is a loser from page one to the very end, with a brief glimpse of hope towards the end that was thwarted. All I took away from that was - always listen to your mother?

The narrative structure is fundamentally broken: the first 70% is the same situations recycled over and over, while all the actual plot development is crammed into the final 20-30%.

What frustrated me most were the sprinkled instances of communal tensions in the story - very ‘soya jaaga’. And then he never explored them. The instances where he cites them, they are completely irrelevant there - the manager beating him? Just an employer beating his lowly employee because a guest complained- what’s the relevance of the red thread on the manager’s wrist? And that Saffron news article? And even the end when he was implicated- he was the scapegoat, what’s his religion got to do with that. Like if the author wanted to explore these themes should have made up relevant instances at least. There was absolutely no meaningful exploration.

By the end, I genuinely couldn't grasp the purpose of this book. Yes, it's someone's life struggle, but it added nothing to my own understanding or experience. It was a slog to get through, and I kept waiting for some payoff or insight that never arrived. The glamour of hope proved to be just that—glamour, with no substance beneath it.

If you're looking for a character study with actual progression or themes that are thoughtfully developed, look elsewhere.

As someone who thoroughly enjoyed Vanity Bagh, I expected a lot more, big let down.

[Rhea Gangavkar · Rating 4 out of 5]

17-year-old Latif has to replace his father as the man of the house as a bellboy at Paradise Lodge—a place where people come to die.

His days pass in making up stories and telling them to Stella—the lodge's janitor—and spying on the guests. But when Latif witnesses a crime in Room 555, his life changes. Forever.

Salim finds a space to squeeze in a boy's coming-of-age story in the face of a sinking island and hostility, without reducing it to a cliché. His prose is crisp and simple, his premise just one potent layer that hits you, and a protagonist unlike any other.

Another fun detail was the title—if you notice, the 'b' of bellboy is not capitalised, which tells us that Latif is the protagonist of this book, but still at the margins, reduced to a 'small' letter.

[Omar Bin Abdul Aziz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The induction of Anees Salim into my bookshelf was one of the greatest events of the past year. It is not often that I pick an author’s books in a row; his I did. After the unexpected tremor that The small-town sea gave within, I swiftly decided The bellboy to be the next fiction to read. Having finished this, I realize, I can still go on reading Salim, until his books exhaust themselves. His writing is the most intimate companion at nights of melancholy. A pressing ache to be turned sweet, one has to do nothing but take a dip in Salim. The bellboy is such an outing where consolation deepens in direct proportion to pain. The more you ache in it, the closer you are to tranquility. The bellboy is a masterpiece, beautifully ironic that it is a tragedy.

[Deepa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time with an Anees Salim novel my heart shatters into sawdust and builds right back. So, this time, I took my own sweet time with this one.
Into the life of Lathif from Manto Island who works as a bellboy at the Paradise Lodge, where people “come to die”. As Lathif boards the Jesus, the only ferry in and out of the island, the world he encounters is claustrophobic, practically as is his life. Lathif has a passive relationship with death, just like nearly everyone at the Paradise Lodge and all the inhabitants of Manto Island, which itself is rumoured is be “dying”. Lathif’s little joys are in the stories he weaves of Ibru, his adventurous and courageous alter-ego for whom no challenge is too tall and no obstacle too big. Through Ibru he vicariously lives a life beyond his reach. Because, truth be told, Lathif is too naive to challenge the big bad world outside which will gobble him up the first chance it gets.
The Bellboy is a poignant dance of death and dying into nothingness. It’s an ode to the simplicities of existence. Pick it up when you want to feel the catharsis of the morning after a good cry.

[Yui Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A relaxing ride straight to a flood

The story smells mortal; it has everything to trigger modern-day readers regardless of background. Poverty. Juvenile psychology. PTSD. Workplace hierarchy. Labor healthcare and the lack of it Post-glory luxurious properties and where to find the best service in hospitality (hint: those who don't speak.your.language.) Last but not least, Kerala.

P/s: The hostel I stayed in Kochi opened another one on Latif's Manto Island, and I guess the second read would take place there.

[Veturi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anees Salim could write, I'd give him that, which was why I rated it 2 stars, but this was a short story, a mid-one at that, pushed too far.
If not just to sell death and despair, why should Latif even have 2 sisters when there was no other purpose were they serving in his story.

[Shahana Astha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking! And beautifully crafted.

[Satdeep Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melancholy!

[Rakesh S · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book!!!

[Nesil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Realistic. I could see Manto Island in the pages.

[Sadiq Kazi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anees Salim's most poignant work to date.

[Meera Vani · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those beautiful books that captures the lives we don't ever see. Love the writing and the heartbreak, but the (without spoiling it) ending seemed too much.

[Manoharan · Rating 3 out of 5]

കൊള്ളാവുന്ന പുസ്തകം. ഹരിത സി.കെ. വിവർത്തനം ചെയ്ത മലയാള പരിഭാഷ '
മൺറോ തുരുത്ത് പശ്ചാത്തലമാക്കി ലത്തീഫ് എന്ന പയ്യൻ്റെ കഥ ഹൃദയസ്പർശിയായി പറയുന്നു

[Ved. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ll think about this book written by Anees Salim for the longest time. I’ll think about Latif for a long time. This book just broke me. Heartbreakingly beautiful and the images that Anees creates with his words are just inexplicable. This easily might be one of the best books I have ever read in my life.

[Shubhaangi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anees Saleem is the master of melancholy. He breaks your heart with so little, undoes you softly and gently. The Small Town Sea (one of the most unforgettable books I read in 2022) left a an unexpected tremor within. With The Bellboy, Anees Saleem leaves a pressing ache.

One would never expect a simple story about a bellboy working in a hotel would affect one so deeply, so intimately. Poignant, tragic, spectacularly devastating.

[Almas Shamim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was published around the time I was preparing to read Salim's other book, 'The Odd Book of Baby Names'- a fabulous piece of fiction intertwining the lives of multiple characters. I loved it quite a lot and was rooting for it to be the JCB winner. So, when I saw The Bellboy, I knew I had to pick it up.
Latif, the bellboy in the title, is a simpleton from a small island town. He has recently got a job as a bellboy in The Paradise Lodge, situated in the mainland. This Lodge has seen better days but is now a less than awesome structure visited time and again (but not as frequently as the book blurb suggests) by people who commit suicide in the lodge. A parallel track shows Latif's life in the island, his family and his poverty.

The characters of the story shine in their brilliant unremarkableness. No character stands out and yet they all do. This is a story which you can easily imagine to be made into a film (quite unlike The Odd Book which seems too complex to be ever captured in motion). The story flows from one scene to another as easily as Jesus, the boat, ferries Latif from his island to his job in the mainland.
The events leading to the climax come out of nowhere and you are left feeling foolish at your own naivete of believing that things could all end well. 'Saffron' looms in the background and probably does cause some conflating damage- Whether it is the prime reason or just another layer to the havoc wreaked will depend on the biases of the reader.
I must say that I waited too long to pick up Anees Salim's books. Right from the time when Vanity Bagh released, I kept postponing picking up something by him... and now I am hooked.