Monday, August 10, 2009

Nothing but a bad joke


Sunil K Poolani
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The Gold of Their Regrets
Ravi Shankar Etteth
Penguin India
Price: 250; Pages: 227

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One-two chapters into reading, I was not sure what is the genre of this bizarre book that I was, excruciatingly, trying to make sense of. Serious fiction? Plain fantasy? Historical novel? Or a joke? When I was through I got my answer: it is nothing but a bad joke. Why? Will come to that.
For that you need to know the story (or the lack of it). The supposed thriller begins in circa 1945. A Mitsubishi K1-21 bomber — carrying Subhas Chandra Bose (the commander of the INA), his trusted bodyguard Bezbaruah and 30 million pounds in gold with Nazi imprint, crashes — nothing more is learnt about it since then. Three men masterminded the crash, so tells Etteth, and only the trio still knows what happened to the gold.
Sixty years pass. Bezbaruah’s son, now a trained mysterious killer, is all set to kill the trio and accumulate the wealth; also in the process he learns where his dad’s remains could be found. Now, the Killer is a Tarzan, invincible, and knows everything that is going on in Indian intelligence agencies; he can reach anywhere, anytime, like Superman; he is invincible, like Mandrake. He is ruthless, like Jack the Ripper. Until… until he finds out that his opponents are no lesser mortals: Anna Khan (super cop, whose husband was killed by a Kashmir militant), and Jay Samorin (martial art specialist from a Kerala royal family). Khan and Samorin are now together and have sex all the time when they are not doing dishum-dishum.
DCP Khan and her fighter-gigolo friend are all set to find out how Samorin’s wild pet, Bharadwaj (one of the 1945 trio), his daughter, her lesbian girlfriend, the lesbian girl’s boyfriend, and lastly Khan’s own dad (the second of the trio) were killed. And naturally they want to nab the Killer and squeeze him to death.
The story revolves around Delhi, Kashmir, Haridwar, Kerala… sans any honesty, subjectivity or any sense of timing. Difficult to believe? So what? It is fiction, right? Wrong. Etteth is only interested in showing off his knowledge of a Delhi high life (Versace, Prada, Armani), his convoluted vocabulary, and his possession of the ‘historical’ facts of the INA. But, ahem, they do not contribute to the continuity of the narration he intends his readers would scurry through.
Sorry for the digression. The story is not over yet. Then comes a character called Tulsi, who seems to have even wooed Alexander the Great, is the godmother of all the nefarious and internecine happenings in the whole world, and can even get pregnant by Samorin (so what she is in her eighties — or is it 180s?
Now, the third of the trio happens to be Samorin’s dad. Ha, ha. So believable. And this Tulsi, who is ravishingly beautiful and has had sex with almost all the royals, fighters and mafia goons since a century, is the person who helps Samorin and Khan to get rid of the killer. How? She personally kills him. And the final truth is revealed: the Killer is Tulsi’s son. Surprises galore? Unless you feel like throwing up.
If this weren’t a ‘serious’ thriller, and a joke book, I would have loved it. Nevertheless, I am sure Etteth did not mean it so; so might be the commissioning editors of the novel in question. To be frank, the book is a page-turner; in a way that, you read it in disbelief but with a suppressed smirk. And, hah, the language is good at times. But lexis is, fiction is not. Other defining and ‘entertaining’ moments in the book are the varied sexual activities: from lesbianism, voyeurism, to even bestiality.
The talented Ravi Shankar (Etteth) should have stuck on to what he is really good at: political cartooning and social commentaries.
-- Deccan Herald

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty severe this critique....Anyway, I don't read thrillers, 'serious' or mock-serious...
-- Priti Aisola

Anonymous said...

Even 'bad jokes' have a punchline, but this seems like too much trouble to find.
-- Seema Munim

Anonymous said...

looks like the book is the best and worst u can give to ur enemies... where do u find such books, Sunil
-- Madhulika Dash

Anonymous said...

What's wrong with Penguin??? Why would they publish this crap anyway? gawd!
-- Gargi Bhattacharya

Frog Books said...

yes, what to do madhu, they come to me for review and i review for money, primarily. it takes care of my beer bills. and thanks gargi, i have nothing against any publisher as i too publish crap sometimes. my reviews are my sole opinion not of the company i represent. and priti, i know it is severe, but you know you asked my opinion i gave. seema, well, nice observation!

Anonymous said...

Well, its just that when i was younger (read: juvenile in a know-it-all sense), my sole aim was getting published by penguin! thanks for second thoughts!
-- Gargi Bhattacharya

Anonymous said...

thanks for sharing, Sunil. Not come across this one. By the way, how is 'The Case of Exploding Mangoes', any idea? Was contemplating reading it..
-- Nishant Kaushik

Anonymous said...

wondering when wld i get to do something like u do.... review books and get paid
-- Madhulika Dash

Anonymous said...

I love to read reviews. They are entertaining most of the times. And they are short, practically all the time.
--
Mahendra Waghela

Frog Books said...

Thanks gargi, for being with me!; and nishant the mangoes guy? he is a joker, can't write a line in english to save his life, i don't know how these.... forget it; and madhu, to review books you should be well-read, and they should approach you and you them not; hi mahendra yes, reviews are meant to be short, the reason being lack of space devoted to book reviews in many newspapers, and there are papers like Times of India that do not believe in arts, let alone culture.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip. will remember it...
-- Madhulika Dash

Anonymous said...

Obviously a useless book.
-- Abha Iyengar (abhaiyengar@gmail.com)