Book Review: Warrior by Olivier Lafont

There are novels and novels and novels. Realistic literary novels bring to you the grime of real life, the sweat dripping off the brow, smiles and tears, joy and sorrow, usually in moderate measure. The beauty of the narration, the quick turn of phrase and the author’s eye for detail, if administered properly and in the right measure, could make the literary novel a pleasure to read, for readers who appreciate such stuff. Chicklits and thrillers are essentially fantasy novels, but attempt to persuade the reader to identify with the hero or heroine and also cling on to the faint hope that all of it could happen in real life. A genuine fantasy novel on the other hand takes the reader to a fantasy land and keeps him or her there on the strength of the fantasy. The characters and settings are so far off from reality that the reader is under no illusion that the story could come true. Just as in the case of thrillers, the prose may not be up to the mark all the time and the writer’s strength of imagination needs to be supremely high and fascinating in order to carry the story.

There are writers and writers and writers. There are real writers and there are ghost writers who write autobiographies for celebrities, or help out those who want to be known as writers, but can’t really write. It is rare to find a celebrity (other than a famous writer) write well. Olivier Lafont, of mixed Indo-French heritage, known to Bollywood fans as Sunit Tandon of the 3 Idiots fame, is one of the delightful exceptions to this rule. A well-known personality in the Indian movie and TV circuits, Lafont’s debut novel Warrior, an adventure fantasy, has been published by Penguin India very recently.

The initial part of the novel is set in Mumbai, in suburbs such as Mahim and Bandra and well-known roads and landmarks such as Turner Road, Carter Road, Linking Road, Pali Hill etc. The end of the world seems to be neigh and Lord Shiva’s son Saam’s blissful existence is thrown into turmoil. Saam leads a humble, non-descript existence as a watch mender, with his live-in girlfriend Maya when the monsoon brings, of all things, snow to tropical Mumbai. There is turmoil and there are riots. People panic and godmen and charlatans reign. The Peerless meet to take stock of the situation and it falls upon Saam, the only demi-God in attendance, to save the world. To do so, Saam who has been living on earth for a few centuries in various guises, has to risk all that he has. Saam’s bout of indecision (before he finally makes up his mind) reminded me of Arjun’s dilemma in the Mahabharat. Arjun had Lord Krishna to help him make up his mind. Saam doesn’t have anyone.

By the time Saam is ready to start his crusade, Mumbai has had heavy showers, not of normal rain, but showers of blood. Saam sallies forth with a few companions and Maya. One of his companions is Ara, his half-brother with whom he has a love-hate relationship. The companions are a disparate bunch – some of them like Lalbaal, Moti and Fateh are very strong and powerful and are not mere mortals, but the scholar Fazal is not only human, but also rather frail. Saam has to locate the Kaal Veda if he is to save the world. What follows next is an advanced version of Star Trek, mixed up with a lot of genuinely good original stuff as Lafont stretches his readers’ imagination to unbelievable levels and takes them to the ends of this earth on steeds which have received the Supreme Blessing and are invincible. And when I started to think that I couldn’t possibly take anymore, Saam and his companions take the Ship of Worlds in search of the Kaal Veda for a trip out of the known world, into a different dimension in terms of space and time. During the voyage, they pick up another companion, Lieutenant Goeffery Gordon, formerly of the British Indian army and its Afghan campaigns. The Lieutenant carries an old fashioned Baker carbine. The carbine and the Lieutenant stay loyal to Saam till the end. Some of his other companions don’t.

Warrior moves back and forth in time and as Saam has brushes with the Marathas, the Portuguese and the Colonial British, Lafont demonstrates his mastery over Indian history and mythology. Time and again Warrior reminded me of the Mahabharata, as the demi-god Saam and other immortals and extra-terrestrials battle each other as the earth lurches towards its end. Lafont’s descriptions of battles are impeccable and there are no repetitions, no easy task when the entire 374 page tome is peppered with fights and battles. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the best thing about Warrior is the way it pushes the limits of credulity. For example, while on the Ship of Worlds, Saam is forced to explain Earth and its inhabitants to a being who hails from a place mostly composed of metals and hard minerals, where carbon is a rare and prized element found only in the deep earth. ‘We are carbon-based creatures. On our world, most creatures subsist on a combination of oxygenated water or air, and a complex mix of molecules. We are organic. That is to say, we develop and grow from absorption of basic elements. In time, we grow old and lose out earlier functionality, till we die.’

Warrior is what we Indians call paisa vassol. It is pure entertainment and despite a story line vaguely similar to the Mahabharata, does not come with a goody-goody message. I do not want to disclose more and give away the ending and spoil it for other readers, but I strongly recommend this novel to everyone who wants his or her imagination to be taken for a soaring, topsy-turvy, stomach-churning and terrifying ride.

Warrior was shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia prize.

Book Review: The Aryavarta Chronicles, Book 3: Kurukshetra by Krishna Udayasankar

Kurukshetra is the third and final book in Krishna Udayasankar’s Aryavarta Chronicles trilogy. As was expected and as the book’s title suggests, the Great War takes centre stage and the book is almost entirely devoted to it.

As the war unfolded, I wondered what shape it would take. Would it be a violent ancient battle fought by sturdy men who lived and died violently, battle axes and bows in hand and no technology at play? Or would it involve advanced weaponry, arrows intercepting other arrows, warheads raining death and destruction, involving technology which would not be out of place in the modern day battlefield. As mentioned in my reviews of the first two books in this trilogy, namely Govinda and Kaurava, Udayasankar has mortalised all the characters in the Mahabharata, with the gentle suggestion that those brave and exceptional beings later became legends over the millennia. This approach led me to expect a battle without any shock and awe technology. On the other hand, I remembered that Udayasankar had retained a trump card in the form of Firewrights, the secret order of inventors and craftsmen who created technology which was out of the world, for that day and age. The Firstborns may have crushed the Firewrights, but their technology survives, as do many Firewrights in disguse. We are told that Drona and Ashvattama were Firewrights, as was Govinda Shauri, aka Krishna.

Ultimately Udayasankar treads a fine line on the battlefield, as she keeps her characters very much mortal, but reluctantly gives them occasional access to Firewright technology, which allows arrows to intercept arrows, missiles loaded with black nitre to be launched and poison gas to be deployed. Udayasankar’s approach works well and one is treated to a realistic narrative of an ancient battle involving modern day technology.

The Kurukshetra War has a number of sub-legends such as Abhimanyu’s attempt to enter the chakravyuh and his consequent death, Jayadrath’s death at the hands of Arjuna, Grand Sire Bhisma’s fall, the duel between Syoddhan (Dhuryodhan) and Bhim etc. and Udayasankar deals with all of these with elan. I waited for Dharma to say Aswathama Hatha Kunjara, but those exact words were missing in Udayasankar’s realistic narrative, though Dharma does come close to saying those words.

I had never heard the story of Bhagadatta and his war elephant Supratika and I would say that Udayasankar’s execution of this particular sub-story is possibly one of the best sections of Book 3. I could feel the terrible fear experienced by the Pandava line as Bhagadatta’s war elephants charged towards them, but as the great Supratika fell, I couldn’t help, but feel extremely sad. The duel between Syoddhan (Dhuryodhan) and Bhim is almost equally good.

During the Second World War, as Nazi Germany baulked at the idea of mobilising its women, the Soviets went all out inducting women not only into factories, but even to the battlefield. The USA and UK followed suit, but to a lesser extent. Udayasankar takes a leaf from the Allied diary and tells that that the Pandavas did the same by enrolling commoners who were not Arya by birth. However, the Pandavas are still vastly outnumbered by the Kauravas and each day on the battlefield depletes their army, whilst the Kauravas take far fewer casualties. Consequently, the ratio of Kauravas to Pandavas is further skewed as the battle progresses.

Were Hidimba, Hidimbi, Ghatotkacha and other Rakshasas really non-humans, ogres or giants as the legends have made them out to be? Not according to Udayasanakar who offers a perfectly rational explanation for the gentle forest dwellers (she calls them Rishasas) who ended up fighting on the side of the Pandavas. Similarly, Udayasankar tells us that the brave warrior Shikhandin (Shikandi) was not a eunuch, but rather the victim of calumny by his ex-wife.

If Panchali walked away with the honours in Book 2: Kaurava, Uttara does the catwalk in Book 3: Kurukshetra. Just like Panchali, Uttara is showed to be a strong female, one who gets her husband Abhimanyu to treat her as an equal and grow to love her. However, Uttara gets on better with demure Subhadra than with strong-willed Panchali. I’ll not disclose any more here, but will leave it to you to read this fantastic book and find out for yourself why this should be so.

Just as in the first two books, almost all characters in Kurukshetra come in shades of grey. Yudhistir or Dharma, as Udayasankar calls him, continues to be an object of derision, though he too shows a few redeeming qualities.

Towards the end, Udayasankar discloses the identity of the Secret Keeper of the Firewrights, which is yet another reason to pick up book 3. Go on, do buy this fantastic book and read it and if you haven’t already read the first two books in this trilogy, do read them beforehand, even though it is perfectly possible to enjoy Kurukshetra without having read Govinda or Kaurava.

Book Review: Wisdom of the White Mountain by Kandathil Sebastian

A human being born at the bottom of the Indian caste ladder is almost certainly doomed for the rest of his or her life. So it seems to the case for Thomas, a fair-skinned dalit Christian boy whose real father is upper caste landlord Shivaraman Nair. Being a Christian is of little use since upper caste Christians shun him. His dark-skinned foster father hates him since it is obvious to everyone that he is not the real father. His biological father is ashamed of his existence and plots to wipe him off the face of the earth.

Those who succeed in life, those who become rich and famous, those who make a lot of money, are not necessarily those who have worked hard or are extremely intelligent. Providence or sheer luck, if you will, plays a big role. So it seems to be the case with Thomas, or Thoma as his fellow villagers call him. Escaping from the jaws of death, Thoma, along with his friend Balu, runs away from his native village and makes his way (inadvertently) to the big city (Kochi) where he falls in the lap of a gang of hit men, who like him and adopt him. Just as some people are lucky with games of chance, Thoma is lucky with adventure. From the gang of hit men, he ends up with a group of Islamic fundamentalists, who too decide to help him and use him for their own ends. Thoma sees a lot of violence and his journeys take him to Pakistan and Kashmir.

However, lady luck does not desert him. Towards the end of the novel, Thoma achieves material success, though his riches are on account of his becoming an ascetic. A pretty western woman is willing to satisfy him sexually, for her own ulterior motives. However, Thoma doesn’t care for wealth or comfort anymore.

Kandathil Sebastian’s novel Wisdom of the White Mountain, the second in his Mountain Trilogy, is not merely the story of Thoma and his escapades. Rather, it asks profound questions about the purpose behind human existence and examines the root cause of sorrow in the world. Sebastian’s first book, Dolmens in the Blue Mountain, was more about the severe damage caused to the western ghats by human intervention and exploitation.

Written in simple English, Wisdom of the White Mountain conveys to its readers the immateriality of wealth and riches and the importance of peace of mind, something Thoma looks for everywhere and achieves only towards the end.

Wisdom of the White Mountain runs to less than 200 pages and I finished it is a couple of two hour easy sittings.

Book Review: The Colonel Who Would Not Repent – The Bangladesh War and its Unquiet Legacy, by Salil Tripathi

I have been fascinated and perplexed by Bangladesh (actually more perplexed than fascinated) ever since I became interested in international politics. One of the many unanswered questions I’ve had about Bangladesh is how the founding father of Bangladesh and almost his entire family, including ten-year old son Russell Sheikh, could be killed within less than 4 years of its independence. I remember once discussing this with a stranger on a train – I must have been fifteen then and my correspondent had made a claim to extensive knowledge of global politics – how Bangabhandu and his entire family could be killed by Bangladeshi army officers, who were unpunished as yet, then. ‘Mujibur Rahman was a good man, but he was surrounded by bad people, especially his sons, who were really nasty. One of them once abducted a senior army officer’s wife, just because he liked her and you know what he did to her, and the army officer couldn’t do anything about it. Just like that. They were above the law. The army men hated Majuibur Rahman and his family so much that when they launched their coup, they killed them all.’ It would be an understatement to say that I was shell-shocked. To be honest, I did not fully believe that story, traces of which can be found on the internet, such as here and here.

As I grew older, I kept looking for answers to my questions. I found some answers, but until I read Salil Tripathi’s latest book, The Colonel Who Would Not Repent - The Bangladesh War and its Unquiet Legacy, no one had satisfactorily answered my questions regarding Mujibur Rahman’s killing and the aftermath. Tripathi gives a number of interlinked reasons as he explains how the mid-level army officers who plotted and carried out Mujib’s executions not only succeeded, but also got away for so long, until Mujib’s daughter Hasina came to power in 1996 and set in motion the wheels of justice (or revenge, if you will).

The Colonel Who Would Not Repent is not just about Mujib’s killing and the delivery of justice (or retribution) to his killers. Rather, it is a concise history of Bengal, starting from the arrival of Islam leading to the East India Company’s rule and Curzon’s partition of Bengal. The 350-odd page tome ends in January 2010 when Farooq Rahman and Mujib’s other killers went to the gallows.

I found Mujib’s personality, as sketched by Tripathi, to be fascinating. Tripathi tells us that Mujib was a physically weak child, taking two years to complete his third grade. He also needed eye surgery and missed four years of schooling as a child. However, when he reached adulthood, he was tall and handsome. He married at the age of eighteen. He studied law, but never graduated. He became close to Suhrawardy and stood by him during the Calcutta riots, which Suhrawardy was responsible for. However, after Pakistan became independent, he was vociferous in his opposition to Urdu. In short, I got the impression that Mujib was an emotional man with charisma who, if he hadn’t become a successful politician, would have turned out to be one of those absolute no-gooders who drink tea at way-side stalls and pontificate endlessly.

As for the story that one of Mujib’s sons had abducted and raped an army officer’s wife, Tripathi merely says that ‘there had been rumours that an Awami politician had misbehaved with Brigadier Dalim’s wife at a party. He had complained to Mujib, but Mujib hadn’t taken the complaint seriously.’ This was only one of the various reasons why some army officers got really annoyed with Mujib and killed him, along with his family.

The reasons for Bengalis in East Pakistan wanting their own country has been well-documented and repeated ad nauseam. During the 1965 Indo-Pak war, many in East Pakistan were angry that East Pakistan was left undefended. West Pakistan got the bulk of resources and development. When Cyclone Bhola stuck, West Pakistan sat back and smirked. On top of it all, Punjabis could not understand why Bengalis loved to sing and dance and follow other Bengali customs which seemed to be entirely “Hindu”. These are covered by Tripathi too and there are no big surprises. However, The Colonel Who Would Not Repent also provides answers to a few other questions which have tormented me for a long time. How could Pakistan and Bangladesh resume normal ties and become rather good friends, if Pakistani troops had indeed massacred over 3 million Bengalis, as widely claimed, I’ve always wondered? Also, if India had sacrificed its soldiers so that Bangladesh could be free, how come there is so much animosity towards India in Bangladesh? I have blogged about these questions in the past. Tripathi offers some answers. It should not be forgotten that East Bengal had in 1947 opted to be with Pakistan, rather than India. There are many more reasons which are of course much more nuanced than I could explain in the course of a book review. Do please read this excellent book to find out for yourself.

Did Pakistan play a role in Mujib’s killing? Tripathi does not rule out the possibility. How else could Pakistan come out in support of the new rulers within a few hours of Mujib’s execution? Tripathi wonders.

After Mujib’s assassination, Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad took over power. Mujib’s killers received praise and promotions. Various leaders perceived to be pro-India were arrested and less than two months later, on 3 November 1975, the imprisoned leaders were executed in jail, allegedly on Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad’s orders. At the same time, a counter-coup took place on 3 November 1975, allegedly at India’s behest and Khaled Mosharraf took over power. Four days later, on 7 November 1975, there was a counter-coup to the counter-coup and Ziaur Rahman was 'the last man left standing'. Trust me, Tripathi explains all of this much better and in greater detail and you’d better hear it from him.

Interestingly, Tripathi tells us that when Bengalis in East Pakistan started to fight for independence, the Indian government had wondered if the Indian state of West Bengal also join the struggle and seek unification with Bangladesh. I found that funny. Tripathi is painfully dispassionate when he says that 'the decision to send the troops into East Pakistan was particularly hard and difficult for India, since its foreign policy was based on peaceful co-existence and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, in particular its neighbours. The policy was based on hard, cynical and practical reasons – India didn’t want the world to poke its nose in Kashmir, and it already had Tibetan refugees, it did not want to appear to be interfering in internal affairs of others.’

Did Pakistani forces kill three million people during the period from 25 March 1971 until the surrender of Pakistani forces? The strongest argument agains this number has been put forth by Sarmila Bose and Tripathi takes note of the various discrepancies in the mainstream narrative, but he does not offer a concluding verdict in this on-going debate.

Tripathi is a good raconteur, but never ceases to be a neutral reporter, always taking care to present both sides of the story. For example, as he examines the various types of discrimination faced by Chakmas living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and other minorities in Bangladesh, he wonders why Bengalis who faced so much persecution at the hands of the West Pakistanis find it so difficult to be so fair to other minorities who are even more vulnerable.

Tripathi does not talk about the mutiny by Bangladesh Rifles' personnel in 2009, which ended in the deaths of so many officers, including its Director General Major General Shakil Ahmed and his wife. I wish he had. This is the only grouse I have against this book.

As the book ends, one is left wondering about Bangladesh’s future. As more and more young Bengalis are attracted to Islamic fundamentalism, will it go the Pakistan route? Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh was not formed on the basis of religion, rather, it was formed because the majority of people living in Bangladesh wanted to be as much Bengali as Muslim. However, if Bangladesh is as much Bengali as West Bengal, would it become a poorer cousin of India and this seems to be unacceptable to many in Bangladesh. I could go on, but I am going to end here with a strong recommendation to all my readers to buy a copy of The Colonel Who Would Not Repent and read it. Just like Colonel Farooq Rahman, you won't repent either.

The first three pages of this 2010 article in the Caravan form the prologue of The Colonel Who Would Not Repent, in a slightly modified form.

Tripathi is also the author of Offence: The Hindu Case

Book Review: The Seasons of Trouble: Life Amid the Ruins of Sri Lanka’s Civil War by Rohini Mohan

Rohini Mohan, a young but celebrated journalist has come up with a book on Sri Lanka, yet another in a long list of recent releases which seek to understand why the fabled Serendib has had to undergo so much pain and suffering since its independence. In Mohan’s account, no one is blameless. Even the victims of Sri Lankan army’s torture are shown to be harbouring irrational animosity and distrust towards Sri Lankan Muslims who speak the same language (Tamil).

Divyan and Prashant, two ex-LTTE fighters are incarcerated by the Sri Lankan army after the Sri Lankan civil ended. During their imprisonment, the men are repeatedly interrogated and tortured. After their release, they struggle to find gainful employment in a Sri Lanka where there seems to be very few avenues open to Tamils. Employers prefer Sinhalese and even infrastructure projects in the north refuse to employ the two Tamil men who are very keen to find some work. I found the inability to find employment or otherwise earn a decent livelihood subsequent to their release from the detention centres to be much more painful and cruel than the torture and interrogations they faced when in custody. In other words, there is total absence of hope for the relatively young men, who nurse a number of wounds and scars, not all of which are physically manifest.

Sarvanatha Pereira is a Sri Lankan Tamil who grew up-country in Nuwara Eliya, a fluent Sinhala speaker to boot. However, his ability to speak Sinhalese and surname which enables him to pass for a Sri Lankan, only leads to trouble, since he is suspected to be a spy. What I liked best about The Seasons of Trouble was the way Mohan unspooled Sarva’s tale slowly, maintaining an element of suspense throughout. Until I covered more than half the book, Mohan kept me wondering if Sarva had been in the LTTE, as accused by the government thugs who abducted him. As Sarva flees to a Western country for asylum, one can’t help but root for him and hope that he is successful. With this too, Mohan keeps her readers guessing till the end.

In multi-cultural Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese and Tamil have lived in isolated cocoons with very little interaction with each other. Schools are either Sinhalese or Tamil or Muslim and most Sri Lankans are mono-lingual. Mohan tells us that “In Sarva’s homeland, the hard-driven Tamil plantation worker was deemed okay but not the Tamil university student protesting discrimination. The happy-go-lucky Burgher with his glass of whiskey passed muster, but not the Burgher with a government job. The trading Muslim was fine, but not the praying Muslim. The devout Sinhala Buddhist was all right, but not the inquisitive one. These groups had to fit in, flow into the crevices the majoritarian state created for them.”

Mohan tells us that the LTTE, which had once expelled 72,000 Sri Lankan Muslims from the Northern Province, was no less cruel than the Sri Lankan army which ultimately defeated it. The LTTE used to forcibly conscript children and used them as cannon fodder. Its propaganda was everywhere, including in schools and colleges. After the end of the war, the Sri Lankan army has been deployed in strength in the captured north. Sinhala classes have been made compulsory for everyone, though Tamil is not taught to Sinhala students in the south. Mugil, a former LTTE combatant, finds that her son has a Sinhala teacher who does not know any Tamil, who teaches her pupils Sinhala songs by rote. The students are unable to form a single original sentence in Sinhala.

Of course, there are glimpses of hope. Many of the aid workers helping Sarva and others like him are Sinhalese. Mohan reiterates that there are alternatives, imperfect though they might be.

The only place where I found myself disagreeing with Mohan was when she casually mentioned that Hamas had trained some Tamil militants in the eighties. As far as I know, the LTTE and other Tamil insurgent outfits had ties with the PLO and certain Kurdish groups. I am reasonably sure that no Sri Lankan Tamil outfit has collaborated with any fundamentalist Islamist group, including Hamas. In any event, Hamas was founded in December 1987.

Mohan writes well, in simple English which is to the point, as she tells her readers one of the saddest stories the world has ever heard. As the book ends, Mohan tells us how the Bodu Bala Sena has started to target Sri Lankan Muslims. Unfortunately, Mohan is not a fiction writer and The Seasons of Trouble is a true story.

Book Review: Daughter by Court Order, by Ratna Vira

Since 2012, 11th October has been celebrated as the year of the girl child. Women face discrimination in so many spheres all over the world and India has one of the worst track records when it comes to fair treatment of women. This discrimination exists not only in public spaces, but also inside most Indian households. In fact, it tends to be much more pronounced at home, with girls receiving step-motherly treatment in everything ranging from food to education to toys. One would tend to believe that this discrimination would be much more pronounced amongst the working classes and that the economically well-off sections of society would not discriminate against their daughters. Recently released debutant author Ratna Vira’s novel Daughter by Court Order suggests that it may not be so and that even among the rich, daughters receives a raw deal.

Aranya or Arnie is smart, pretty and bright as a button, but has a mother who seems to be straight from hell. Not only does Kamini dote on her effeminate son Randeep, but she also seems to hate Arnie with a passion. To start with, when Arnie was born (in France), Kamini didn’t want her to survive. Luckily for Arnie, her paternal grandfather Eshwar Dhari, a famous politician, willed otherwise and sent his daughter, Chhoti Phua to get Arnie to India. There are a number of instances where Arnie is shown to have suffered at the hands of her mother, who constantly put her down. Not so surprising in India, except that Kamini is supposed to be a feminist who publicly espouses the cause of women and their rights, all the time.

Arnie’s paternal grandfather is not only a successful politician, but is also frightfully rich. Her mother’s family, the Sharmas, on the other hand, came over to India from West Punjab during the partition and are shown to be not so well off, though quite shrewd and tough as nails. Well, to cut a long story short, Arnie’s grandfather has left behind a lavish mansion at Civil Lines, the house where Arnie grew up in and because Arnie’s mother does not want Arnie to inherit her share of the property, Arnie does not find a place in the family tree which has been filed with the court in connection with the partition of the property. When Arnie does find out about her mother’s deceit, it is too late. Or is it?

Arnie is a woman who has suffered a lot. A divorcee, Arnie has brought up her two kids singlehandedly after her husband Krish walked out on her. Arnie is torn with doubts as she prepares to fight her own kith and kin. Fortunately for her, she has a number of friends, including ex-husband Krish. Kamini is tough and she doesn’t hesitate to play dirty, but luckily for Arnie, India’s much criticised legal system delivers, and that too, with relative speed. The judges who hear her cases are honest and though Arnie is not able to hire a battery of lawyers like her mother and other relatives, the team she has assembled is top-notch. Many people help Arnie secretly, sending her documents and other evidence secretly by courier. In fact, Arnie even receives a visit from a Pakistani woman whose family suffered a lot on account of the Sharmas, Kamini's relatives, in pre-Partition West Punjab. There are threats to her life and towards the end, Arnie has a narrow escape from an acid attack, but Arnie never turns back.

The second half of the novel is especially riveting, as the action shifts between courts in Delhi and Ranchi. Towards the end, there is a sort of reconciliation with Krish who helps her in her quest for justice, but there is no doubt that Arnie’s fight is her own and her success, almost entirely the result of her determination, perseverance and single-mindedness. One starts to feel sorry for Arnie from the outset and as one learns more and more about Kamini and her viciousness, it is inevitable that one roots for Arnie and her success in claiming her rightful share of the property.

Author Ratna Vira is the daughter of Nalini Singh and S.P.N. Singh, the son of C.P.N. Singh, former Governor of UP and the vice chancellor of Patna University. Nalini Singh is the sister of Arun Shourie, the well-known and highly reputed politician and former journalist. It has been reported on a number of blogs and other websites that Arnie’s story bears an uncanny resemblance to Ratna Vira’s own life. Arnie’s parental grandfather Eshwar Dhari, C.P.N. Singh’s counterpart is shown as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and the vice chancellor of Ranchi University. Arnie’s Yudi mama who betrays her, bears a striking similarity to Arun Shourie. Was Nalini Singh as nasty to Ratna Vira and Kamini is shown to be towards Arnie? Was Ratna Vira embroiled in a family property dispute like Arnie and did she have to fight her family as well as the system to gain her rightful inheritance? Did Arun Shourie betray Ratna Vira’s trust in such a family property dispute? Interestingly, Ratna Vira has not denied any of these parallels.

It is surprising that both Nalini Singh and Arun Shourie, who are usually never tongue-tied or at a loss for words, have not commented on these real-life parallels. Their silence seems to suggest that at least some of Daughter by Court Order is based on truth.

It is a not so well known fact that five years ago, Ratna Vira instituted a scholarship at St. Stephens in memory of her grandfather C. P. N. Singh and each year for the last five years, a meritorious female student with financial needs has been receiving a substantial sum of money from Ratna Vira.

Daughter by Court Order is written in elegant English and is, on the whole, an exciting read. More importantly, Ratna Vira's tale is bound to inspire millions of women, in India and elsewhere, to stand up for their rights and to keep fighting till they have won.

Running a marathon to help children suffering from Leukemia

I am planning to participate in the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) on 18 January 2015. My prime motivation for running the SCMM is to raise money for the Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA), a wonderful charity which does a number of things to fight cancer and assist cancer victims in India.

I have been assured by CPAA that all monies raised by me will be used entirely to help children suffering from Leukemia. Further, all donations to CPAA are eligible for tax exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (by way of deduction from your taxable income).

I have run the SCMM before – in January 2012. Last October 2013, I ran the Vasai Virar Mayor’s Marathon (VVMM). I took 5 hrs 23 minutes to run the SCMM. Thanks to very hot weather, my VVMM took me much longer, 5 hrs 49 minutes to be exact. You can access my timing certificates through these links:

SCMM 2012

VVMM 2013

This January, I am hoping to complete the requisite 42.195 kilometres in just under 5 hours. Please wish me luck!

I do not personally know any child suffering from Leukemia, but I do know that there are many in India and a majority of them are poor. They need help. Our help. I request you to donate generously to the CPAA, which you can do through this link

I wish you a very Happy Diwali!

Is Shrien Dewani Guilty?

Shrien Dewani’s trial has been underway at Cape Town for two days now. Since Leopold Leisser, a German male prostitute is expected to give evidence that Shrien paid for sex sessions with him, Shrien pre-emptively admitted to being a bi-sexual who paid for sex with other men. Apparently, his affairs with men were non-emotional and merely physical, whilst his relationships with women were otherwise.
A British parliamentary aide is also expected to give evidence to the effect that he had gay sex with Shrien many times. Shrien is said to like S&M and was a frequent visitor to The Hoist gay nightclub at Vauxhall and other gay bars in London. Leisser has claimed that Dewani asked to be humiliated and racially abused. Even after he was married to Anni, Shrien logged into gay websites such as Gaydar and Recon.

A lot will depend on the testimony of taxi driver Zola Tongo who claims to have been paid by Shrien to arrange his wife’s murder and make it look like a car-jacking. Zola Tongo and two other men, Mziwamadoda Qwabe and Xolile Mngeni, have already been convicted for their roles in Anni’s killing.

In April 2014, I had wondered in this post if Shrien Dewani is gay, assuming that a gay Shrien would have a motive for having his wife Anni Dewani murdered by a hit man. Now that Shrien has confessed that he is a bisexual, does it mean that he is definitely guilty? Not necessarily. It’s like this. Let’s assume that Shrien is speaking the truth when he says that he pursued Anni and asked her to marry him. Either Shrien was under pressure from his family to “get married and settle down” or he himself wanted to find a partner who would allow him to meet the expectations of his Indian family or Shrien genuinely loved Anni. If Shrien genuinely loved Anni, then obviously he is not guilty. If Shrien married Anni without any pressure from his family, but in order to meet his family’s expectations, then there is a lesser chance that he wanted her dead. It can still be argued that having married Anni and made his parents happy, Shrien may have wanted Anni to disappear from this world. As a widower, he would face a lot less pressure to remarry. If it comes out that Shrien’s parents forced him to marry Anni, say with the threat of disinheritance, then the chances are much higher that Shrien is guilty.

Let’s assume that three percentage of the world’s population is gay and another seven percent is bisexual. In communities where arranged marriages are common, this would mean that ten percent of men and women getting married are closet homosexuals and do not particularly want to get married or get married to either meet social expectations and to prevent tongues wagging. Having got married, would anyone want to get rid of the spouse? Consider a man buying an expensive car which he doesn't really need and which is high maintenance, just to show off. Would the buyer then sabotage the car because it is high maintenance and is something he doesn't really need.

Shrien claims that he had informed Anni about his testosterone levels and the possibility that he might not have a child. It is not clear if this claim is backed up with evidence. Did Shrien also disclose to Anni that he is a bisexual who has in the past paid for male prostitutes? Pretty unlikely. Will the prosecution be able to disprove Shrien’s claim that he has had many relationships with other women in the past?

What are the chances that Anni finally figured out that Shrien was either gay or bisexual? Actually, they are pretty high. I am assuming that the couple did not sleep together till they got married. In any event, they had not lived in. I am also assuming that Anni (who grew up in Sweden) had some experience of relationships on her own. Most probably she too had agreed to marry Shrien to meet her own parent’s expectations. She might have figured out within a few days of marriage that Shrien is not your normal heterosexual man. How would she have reacted? Brought up in Sweden, Anni might have done some plain-speaking. Did she threaten to leave him? Did an angry Shrien then hire a hitman to kill his wife when they reached South Africa? Or is Shrien just another closet homosexual who did the standard Indian thingee to please his parents and then happened to get very unlucky in South Africa?

Book Review: Half Girlfriend by Chetan Bhagat

Each of Chetan Bhagat’s novels addresses an issue and carries a message. Five Point Someone focuses on the unimaginative and monotonous curriculum which all Indian college students suffer and goes on to say that there’s more to life than academics and grades. One Night @ the Call Centre addresses the insecurities of the Indian middle class and calls on them to face their problems with courage. The 3 Mistakes of My Life is not very different from One Night @ The Call Centre in terms of the message it carries, but the setting, Ahmedabad towards the end of the last decade, seething with communal differences, is very different from the call centre. In Revolution 2020 Bhagat delves into the problems facing India’s education sector and tells his readers that corruption can be fought successfully. Bhagat’s only work of non-fiction, What Young India Wants, addresses many issues and carries a number of messages.

Like his earlier works of fiction, Bhagat’s Half Girlfriend digs into an issue and conveys a simple message. Do you remember all those Indian movies, so many of them, in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and many other languages, where a poor man, usually a cabbie, falls in love with a rich girl, the rich girl’s family objects to the match, makes life hell for the poor boy and his family before true love emerges victorious? Obviously, such movies struck a cord with all cabbies, not to mention other single men in similar circumstances. Half Girlfriend does not have a hero living below the poverty line - protagonist Madhav Jha is not particularly poor. Far from it, he is a prince from Dumraon, is well over six feet tall and plays basket-ball very well. Well enough to play for Bihar. However, he cannot speak English and to get admission to St. Stephens he has to rely on its quota for sportsmen. Madhav’s character is likely to strike a cord with every Indian struggling with English (the typical Chetan Bhagat reader) and aspiring to improve his/her diction, fluency and accent.

At St. Stephens Madhav makes friends with Riya Somani, rich, tall, slim, pretty and most importantly, has English dripping out of her mouth, in the right accent. Riya also plays basket-ball, she too gets her admission through the sports quota. Riya wants to be friends whilst Madhav wants a lot more than mere friendship. As a compromise, Riya offers to be Madhav’s half girlfriend.

When the story begins, Madhav meets Chetan Bhagat and we are given to understand that Riya is no more. Madhav has with him a stack of diaries written by Riya in English and these he gives to Bhagat to read (since he can’t read them himself even though he has put himself through 3 years of St. Stephens). With some reluctance, Bhagat agrees and starts reading them. The journey which follows takes us through their troubled and topsy-turvy romance and I was reminded me of a number of Indian movies I have seen. In particular, one scene where Madhav, on the advice of his friends, smuggles Riya into his hostel room and tries some crude stuff, only to have Riya leave, reminded me of a Malayalam movie I saw around 2 decades ago, whose name I can’t remember.

Chetan Bhagat’s English has improved ever more since What Young India Wants and Revolution 2020. I assume his publishers have put even more editors on the job. There are no grammatical errors and the narration is simple and even elegant. In the course of the story, as Madhav prepares to make a speech in English, Riya advises him, among other things, to read simple books in English such as those by Chetan Bhagat. Half Girlfriend would definitely fit the bill here for those learning the English language.

Just as in the case of Revolution 2020, Bhagat does a great job explaining the problems faced by poor Indians to those more fortunate. In Revolution 2020 Bhagat delved into the problems facing India’s education sector. Here, the focus is on villages and village schools. You see, Madhav’s mother runs a school in Dumraon and after finishing his degree at St. Stephens, Madhav forsakes a job offer from HSBC and goes to Dumraon where he helps his mother manage the school. Why don’t villagers send their kids to school, badly run though they might be, when school education is free? Bhagat’s explanation is simple and sensible. Please read this eminently readable book to find out the rationale offered by Bhagat through his characters.

There is one bit about Half Girlfriend which irked me no end. We are told on a number of occasions that Madhav has played basketball at the ‘state-level’, meaning he has represented Bihar in ‘state-level’ basket-ball competitions, which is supposed to be a big deal. When one plays in an inter-state tournament, which is what one does if one represents one’s state, one plays at the ‘national level’ and not the ‘state-level’. Playing at the national-level is really a big deal. Playing state-level would be playing in an intra-state tournament, such as an inter-district tournament, which is nothing to write home about.

Did you know that Somani is a Marwadi name and not a Sindhi name? I didn’t, till I read Half Girlfriend.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Have you watched The King’s Speech? George VI has a stammer and he needs to make his maiden speech after the start of the Second World War. He manages to do so with a speech therapist. In Half Girlfriend, Madhav Jha, the Raj Kumar of Dumraon who lives in a haveli that is falling apart, needs to make a speech in English if he is to get a grant for his village school from the Gates Foundation. He goes to Patna for lessons to brush up his English and fortunately runs into a divorced Riya, who had earlier broken up with him, married an even richer man and gone to England. Riya helps him with his English, which at that point seemed to be pretty basic for a man who studied Sociology at St. Stephens for three years and got a job offer from HSBC to be a personal banker. Never mind that, with Riya’s help, Madhav does make the speech successfully and the grant is in the bag, one even bigger than expected.

MORE SPOILERS

Since we are told at the beginning of the book that Riya died and left her diaries behind, one is all set for a tragic ending. However, Bhagat the story teller has a big ace up his sleeve and towards the end the reader is offered the delicious possibility that Riya might not be dead after all. Madhav’s search for Riya leads him to Manhattan where he has the enviable job of visiting each of its live music bars to look for a pretty female singer who could pass for a Spaniard or Greek and might not be singing under her real name. I will stop my review her and leave it to you to travel to the happy ending on your own.

On the whole, I found Half Girlfriend to be as entertaining as any good Bollywood movie might be. In any event, the script has been tailor made for a Bollywood adaptation - there are a number of scenes in the beginning where Madhav and Riya play basket-ball all by themselves, laying the ground for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai type basket-ball court scenes. Also since Riya Somani is five feet nine, I assume someone tall like Deepika Padukone would play Riya in the movie. Times of India has put its money on Kriti Sanon who at 5 feet 6 inches is just an inch below Deepika Padukone.

Book Review: Birth of the Bastard Prince by Anurag Anand

Best-selling writer Anurag Anand has come up with a sequel to his novel, The Legend of Amrapali. When The Legend of Amrapali ended, legendary courtesan Amrapali (who lived during the period of Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavira) had been appointed Nagarvadhu, much against her wishes, Pushp, her lover had been murdered, after having been implicated in a false case of spying and Amrapali was busy plotting revenge against Manudeva, the evil ruler of the Vajji confederacy who was responsible for her plight. Well, in Birth of the Bastard Prince, Anand drives the story forward at a furious pace. Amrapali gets her revenge against Manudeva pretty quickly and everything seems hunky dory, especially when Amrapali’s heart is won over by Bindusen, a seasoned player. Likewise, her companion Prabha’s affections are won over by Suraj Mal, whom Amrapali rescues from the clutches of an evil Raja Udit, the King of Ukkacala Khada, using her intelligence. Things go into a tizzy when it turns out that Bindusen is not the simple traveler he had originally appeared to be. In fact, he is the enemy.

Since time immemorial, consorting with the enemy has been considered to be an offence. After the Nazis were thrown out of France, there was large scale retribution against French women who had had relationships with German soldiers. When Amrapali learns that her lover and the father of her son is none other than Bidusara, the King of neighbouring Magadha, she is shocked. Magadha had always coveted democratic Vaishali and when Amrapali discovers Bindusen’s true identity, Vaishali and Magadha are at war and Vaishali is under siege. Nagarvadhu she might be, but Amrapali knew that the starving people of Vaishali would not countenance her actions. I will not disclose more other than to say that Anand writes well and I stayed up at night to complete this book once I got past the half-way mark.

There are a number of twists and turns, the plot keeps changing constantly and I could not guess how the story would end, though the blurb on the back cover did offer a vague clue. Anand writes in simple English and as is common these days, allows a number of modern day jargon to creep into the narration.

If there was one discordant note, it was in the early part of the book, when Amrapali gets Raja Udit to agree to pay compensation to Suraj Mal in the form of potatoes. The agreement is a clever tactic which allows Amrapali to get the better of Raja Udit, and I will leave you to read this book and find out for yourself what exactly Amrapali did, but the fact is, potatoes were introduced to India by Europeans and until the 17th century, there were no potatoes in India.

Let me stop nitpicking and reiterate that Birth of the Bastard Prince is an excellent read and all those who (like me) enjoy history based fiction will find it a delight.

Book review: Strictly Personal - Manmohan and Gursharan by Daman Singh

I’m sure there are millions of Indians who would like to understand the human being behind that inscrutable face, the man who as India’s foreign minister was responsible for policies which in 1991 led to India’s economic liberalization and who later became India’s prime minister for two consecutive terms from 2004 till 2013, a man who is said to have allowed some of India’s most high profile and profligate scams to take place under his watch and a man who finally came to be called a stooge of the Gandhi family, collecting brickbats on its behalf. I picked up Strictly Personal - Manmohan and Gursharan written by Manmohan Singh’s daughter Daman Singh, not only in the hope of finding out more about India’s ex-prime minister Manmohan Singh, but also with the expectation of being presented with Manmohan Singh’s defence against the various allegations that have dogged him during his second term as India’s prime minister.

Manmohan Singh has three daughters and author Daman Singh is his second child. As I started reading Strictly Personal, I wondered about Daman’s reasons for writing this book. Was Daman one of those middle children who crave for her parents attention? Was Daman writing Strictly Personal in order to get parental approval? Or did Daman plan to use Strictly Personal to get back at her father for past injustices?

Manmohan was born in British India in 1932, at a place called Gah, which later became part of Pakistan. India’s freedom struggle was at its zenith. Manmohan’s father Gurmukh was a clerk based in Peshawar, working for a private firm involved in the import and trading of dry fruits. His mother Amrit died when Manmohan was still an infant and Manmohan was brought up, initially by his grandparents Sant Singh and Jamna Devi at Gah, and later by his uncle and aunt Gopal Singh and Ramditi who lived in Chakwal, before he moved to Peshawar to be with his father who had remarried. After Partition, Manmohan’s family moved to India. During the riots which accompanied the partition, Manmohan’s grandfather Sant Singh was killed at Gah.

What sort of man is Manmohan Singh in his personal life? Is he loud and jovial, as would behoove the stereotype of a Punjabi? Or does he behave more or less the way he behaves in public? As a seventies child who grew up in small-town India, I knew a number of men, usually friends or acquaintances of my father, who led the most colourless lives one could imagine. Employed by the government or semi-governmental organizations in various capacities, they were morally upright men who spent very little time with their families and not on account of their long working hours. Relaxation for them usually involved a long chat with other men of similar temperament. Some of them were workaholics and some were religious, but the main characteristic was their anhedonic nature. Naturally thrifty, they rarely went on holidays or watched movies or got drunk. Faithful to their wives with whom they were stiff and formal and from whom they expected and received total obedience, they were not wife-beaters. They didn’t have to be, since subservience was there for the asking. They were incapable of showing much affection to their children either, especially once they ceased to be toddlers. Manmohan can't be called a small-town man, he went to Cambridge and later Oxford, worked in New York and Geneva, but the above description would fit him to a T. Mind you, he is a good man all along. Once, Daman tells us, Gursharan went for an event at Tagore theatre, taking young Daman with her. Kiki was away at school. Gursharan sang to her heart’s content and came back happy. Manmohan however wasn’t very happy. It was wrong of her to have handed over Daman to strangers he reasoned and freezing silence followed, finally forcing Gursharan to apologise. This was the same Manmohan who when he lived with his wife in Oxford, allowed Gursharan to attend a ball at Oxford as his friend Sudarshan’s date, just so that Gursharan could experience an Oxford ball. An all-nighter, Gursharan had a good time and returned home early morning.

There are some men who are primed to be very good at academics. They always get along very well with their teachers and have an instinct for saying and doing the right things at the right time. Well, Manmohan was definitely one of those. We are told that even before he set sail for Cambridge in 1955, Manmohan had set his sights on the Adam Smith prize and found out its rules well in advance.

Manmohan almost always carried his work home. I am sure that the positions he held required a fair amount of work, but did he always have to put in such long hours or did he behave thus because he had no other interests? Was Manmohan good at delegation or was he a micro-manager? Daman doesn’t tell us and I can’t believe she doesn’t know.

One expects to read a number of anecdotes about Manmohan’s contemporaries in a book such as Strictly Personal. There are a few, but not as many as I would have liked. Daman tells us that once at Cambridge, Jagdish Bhagwati’s tutor Joan Robinson uttered the expletive ‘balls’ as she came across an error in his essay. Jagdish apparently believed that this was the English way of expressing disagreement and used the same expression in polite company.

Daman Singh does not say enough about Manmohan Singh’s food habits. He is not a vegetarian, but his favourite dishes all seem to be vegetarian. We are told that young Manmohan had a weakness for chhole, tossed with green chilies and lemon juice. I found a solitary reference to mutton curry being eaten by Gursharan (not Manmohan). Somewhere in the middle, there is a mention of chicken or turkey sandwiches (again Manmohan is not the eater) and towards the end, Daman describes a Christmas dinner at Boston, which had Turkey. I am pretty sure that there is no mention of Manmohan eating any meat. In any event, there isn’t a single reference to tandoori chicken being eaten by anyone. Did Daman, who turned vegetarian later in life, subconsciously block out all memories of meat eating within the family?

Daman tries to devote as much space to Gursharan as she does for Manmohan and she does a good job. Gursharan was a pretty girl who was an average student and who liked to sing. When Manmohan was an academic at Punjab University, there were a number of family get-togethers and picnics. Needless to say, Gursharan seems to have enjoyed these though Manmohan admits to signing a few sad songs such as Lagta Nahin Hai Dil Mera (a poem penned by Bahadur Shah Zafur while in exile in Rangoon) and Aankhan Waris Shah noon, kitney kabran vichon bol (Amrita Pritam’s poem about the Partition).

In 1966, Manmohan and his family moved to New York where Manmohan worked for UNCTAD. Daman reveals that Gursharan was told and not asked if she wanted to go. In New York, Manmohan was keen to buy a car, but could not pass the driving test. Gursharan thinks she could have passed the test, but Manmohan never suggested that she should give it a go. Later when they moved to Delhi, the husband and wife duo learned to drive, but Gursharan was always the better driver.

Manmohan was the typical Indian husband who did little or no housework and made no effort to learn to cook or clean. Precisely nine months after Manmohan and Gursharan got married, they had their first child Upinder, who got the nickname Kiki. Even when they lived in New York, Manmohan expected all his guests to receive Indian standards of hospitality and restaurant standard meals. Gursharan had to do it all by herself, in addition to looking after the children. Daman (rightly) excoriates Manmohan over his treatment of Gursharan.

As a bureaucrat in Delhi, Manmohan ruthlessly applied government rules of conduct to this family. This meant that he cut down socializing so that there could be no possibility of parochialism or nepotism. The office car and telephone were meant solely for office use. The family took very few holidays, but the children were allowed to buy as many books as they wanted.

If Daman does not think much of Manmohan’s social or housekeeping skills, she makes up for it in the admiration she shows for his professional competence and intelligence. Starting from the time he did well at school, to his Cambridge days, his time at Punjab University, his PhD from Oxford, his PhD thesis (on India’s Export Trends and the Prospects for Self-sustained Growth), his work at UNCTAD, it’s all praise, praise and praise and quite rightly so. Manmohan was the typical, clever small town boy who worked hard and earned his laurels. Manmohan was appointed to the Planning Commission and was involved in the 6th and 7th five year plans. Later he was made the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, which made him move to Mumbai. The RBI was riven with trade-unions and a serious strike had just ended. Daman tells us that he father calmed things down by giving in to a number of demands of the workers. In 1987, Manmohan went to Geneva to work for the South Commission, which tried to facilitate south-south solidarity and cooperation.

When Narasimha Rao was sworn in as the Prime Minister in June 1991, he chose Manmohan Singh to be his finance minister. Manmohan had just returned from a trip to the Netherlands when PC Alexander called him late in the night and woke him up. The economy was in a really bad state. Daman quotes Manmohan to say that policy making was entirely left to Manmohan. As a finance minister, Manmohan was decisive and he seems to have enjoyed his job, his detractors notwithstanding.

Manmohan was definitely a social conservative. One of the reasons for returning to India from his UNCTAD job at New York was that Manmohan and Gursharan wanted their daughters to grow up in India, with Indian values. Kiki had just turned ten. Manmohan was not overtly religious and I got the feeling that he is one of those men who always play lip service to the religion they grew up in. None of the three daughters turned out to be religious and Gursharan is upset about it, especially because as parents Manmohan and Gursharan did not take sufficient pains to make their children religious. All three of the daughters married outside the Sikh faith. Kiki’s marriage to Vijay Tankha caused immense pain to Manmohan and Gursharan. It actually took Gursharan quite a while to accept Vijay and eat at the same table with him. Eventually she grew to like him and accepted him. There was less pain when Daman married Ashok Patnaik. When Amu married Barton Beebe, there was only happiness all around.

Many intelligent men (and women) are snobbish and Manmohan is no exception to this general rule. When Kiki opted to study history, Manmohan was not particularly delighted, though he had initially said that the decision was Kiki’s to make. Daman tells us that Manmohan had a low opinion of social science disciplines other than his own. Occasional careless remarks from Manmohan regarding the study of history hurt Kiki. Daman took mathematics and her father was pleased. Was it a case of the middle-child trying to please her father? When Daman switched to the Institute for Rural Management at Anand, her father was not pleased. Amu followed her father’s footsteps, studying economics at Cambridge and Oxford. However, when she suddenly switched to law, Manmohan was distressed. For a while it appeared that his daughters would not measure up to Manmohan’s expectations, but Daman tells us that over a period of time, he learnt to acknowledge the worth of their chosen paths.

Kiki seems to have borne the brunt of Manmohan’s social conservatism and snobishness, though Daman does not say so in as many words. Also, one gets the feeling that Daman played peace-maker more often than not. When Kiki told Manmohan that she wanted to get married, Manmohan asked when rather than whom. Kiki was once again upset.

Daman Singh’s narrative is written in simple English and she refers to her father as Manmohan throughout the book. The book is written chronologically starting from Manmohan’s childhood, but Daman does not hesitate to move back and forth in time and there is topical segregation as well.

Spoiler Warning

Just after the four hundred page mark, I crossed the chapter which describes how in May 1999, Manmohan stood for elections to the Lok Sabha in South Delhi and tasted defeat along with all six other congress candidates for Delhi. I started to turn the pages even faster. What sort of explanation would Daman Singh have for all those scams which took place under her father’s watch? Had Manmohan Singh turned the Nelson’s eye or was he genuinely ignorant of all that was happening around him? Well, I was disappointed. After that electoral defeat, Strictly Personal has a couple of small chapters titled “Moving On” and “And On” and they reveal practically nothing much about those ten years. The rest of it was Notes etc.

There are many bureaucrats who earn a reputation for stellar honesty even as they live and work among those who are dishonest. In many cases, their promotions depend on those who are corrupt. The obvious inference is that though honest in their own dealings, the gentlemen in question are definitely no whistle blowers and can be relied on to not ask too many inconvenient questions. Was Manmohan such a man? Daman actually tells us that Manmohan was one of those bureaucrats who believed in doing good by stealth. In other words, he never challenged a wrong doer, especially if the wrong doer was a superior.

In the 1960s, Jagdish Bhagwati and Padma Desai dissented from the left wing approach adopted by the mainstream at the Delhi School of Economics and were ostracised. Manmohan actually agreed with much of what the duo said in their book Planning for Industrialisation, but he did not take sides. He saw himself as a pragmatist and a consensus builder who did not believe in fighting for a side which was unlikely to win.

Early on in Strictly Personal, Daman narrates an anecdote which has some bearing on this question. While staying at Chakwal with Gopal Singh and Ramditi and their four children, Daman tells us that Manmohan had developed a habit of stealing money from his cousin Tarna and secreting the stolen coins in a sock hidden in a suitcase. And what was the stolen money used for? Apparently for studious Manmohan, ‘schoolbooks were his most precious possessions and he could not bear to see them smudged or torn. If one book was even slightly blemished, he simply threw it away, dipped into his sock and bought a new one.’ Manmohan must have been around nine by then - he had cleared Class Four before he left Gah for Chakwal - and it cannot be said that nine year old Manmohan did not know that he was doing something wrong. What are we to make of a man who would steal to make sure that his books remained unblemished? Does that foretell a love for perfection, without any thought about collateral damage? But then the stolen funds also financed Manmohan’s weakness for chhole.

When the 2nd World War got over, sweets were distributed in at Manmohan’s Khalsa High school. Thirteen year old Manmohan convinced his classmates to refuse the sweets as a mark of protest at India’s continued bondage to Britain. Would Manmohan have been so bold if independence was not in the air? I feel not. I just can’t imagine Manmohan as a freedom fighter in the beginning of the 20th century, when independence was a distant dream.

Manmohan’s childhood friends from Gah remember that he was bad at marbles and that they threw him into the village pond when he refused to play with them. Was Manmohan bullied at school, I wonder?

Manmohan seems to have been a bit of a hypochondriac, one who occasionally complained of palpitations and uneasiness. When it happened, Gursharan would drive him to Willingdon hospital. Daman tells us with a touch of guilt that Manmohan did have a real attack in May 1990, when he was in London. Apparently by-pass surgery was successfully performed.

One of Gursharan’s cousins, a lady, was detained by the security forces in the aftermath of Operation Bluestar. Daman tells us that though innocent, the cousin was detained for 4 years. It is clear from Daman’s narrative that Manmohan Singh did not try to pull strings to secure his cousin-in-law’s release. Was it because Manmohan did not care about that cousin-in-law or because it thought it was wrong to pull strings for any personal cause, even if it was to secure the release of one wrongly jailed?

Manmohan was also a big fan of Partap Singh Kairon, Punjab’s Chief Minister. Pratap Singh Kairon set up an industrial board with representatives from government, industry and academics. Manmohan was on that board. Daman tells us that Manmohan considered Partap Singh to be a man of vision, a nationalist who stood for a cohesive, strong and progressive Punjab. Manmohan admired Indira Gandhi, though he didn’t particularly get along well with Rajiv Gandhi who thought the Planning Commission (of which Manmohan Singh was a member) was a bunch of jokers. I can visualize Manmohan Singh happily working for a Prime Minister like Vajpayee or Advani or even Modi, following instructions quietly and efficiently and doing a good job. However, I just don’t understand why he took so much shit from Sonia Gandhi and her coterie and Strictly Personal left me none the wiser.

Book Review: Byculla to Bangkok – Mumbai’s Maharashtrian Mobsters by S. Hussain Zaidi

Following the success of Dongri to Dubai, India’s best known expert on the Mumbai mafia, Hussain Zaidi, is back with a new book on Mumbai’s Maharashtrian mobsters. Just as in the case of Dongri to Dubai, Byculla to Bangkok is characterised by Zaidi’s Bollywood-style dialogues and an endless flow of anecdotes about Mumbai’s dons. To be honest, after a promising start, Byculla to Bangkok briefly goes through a tedious phase as Zaidi traces the background of gangsters who later made it big. However, the tedium soon gives way to excitement as men such as Amar Naik, Chhota Rajan (real name Rajan Nikalje) and Arun Gawli start the blood-letting and commence empire building.

As usual, one of the best things about Zaidi’s Byculla to Bangkok is the sheer number of interesting anecdotes he comes up with, all of which relate to the main narrative. For example, we are told that after gangster Ashwin Naik was shot in court, a few alert police officers managed to capture the hit men and took them to the Cuffe Parade police station. There, instead of being received and given assistance, they were turned away and sent off to the Colaba police station with Mumbai’s police’s signature line – Aamchya haddit nahi aahe! This is not under our jurisdiction!

Another interesting story is how, after the police arrested the killers who had assassinated the famous builder Sunit Kahtau and put them on trial, the case against them fell apart when his widow Panna Khatau refused to assist the prosecution. Zaidi does not tell us why Panna would do that. Was she or her immediate family threatened by the mafia or was there something else at play?

It’s not just the stories which are fascinating. Zaidi’s language is also a Bollywood-ish treat. For example, while describing India’s biggest druglord, Nareyi Khan’s lady-love, we are told that 'Ayesha Qandahari was a woman of indescribable beauty, an Aghani with flawless skin, big dark eyes, long eyelashes, a mesmerizing smile and a perfect-ten figure. Men would kill to possess her. But it seemed that those who made love to her were destined for certain death.'

It is well-known that Mumbai’s gangsters have a presence in places like Dubai and Bangkok. Well, Zaidi follows them there. In particular, we are given a blow by blow account of two hits carried out in Dubai by Chhota Rajan’s men. Sunil Sawant alias Sautya was Dawood’s chief lieutenant. After Dawood left Mumbai in the aftermath of the 1993 blasts, Sautya followed him and ultimately ended up in Dubai (in the wake of other lieutenants like Sharad Shetty and Anil Parab) where he converted to Islam and re-named himself Suleman. In 1995, three hit men shot him in broad daylight after which there was a chase. Sautya was cornered and his throat slit. Interestingly all the assailants were caught. It was then that Chhota Rajan’s ingenuity came to the fore. When interrogated, the killers confessed to have been sent by Sharad Shetty and Anil Parab, all of which led to some confusion within the Dawood camp, since Sharad Shetty and Anil Parab too worked for Dawood Ibrahim, though Dawood did not really fall for that ruse. I will not divulge how Chhota Rajan managed to fix all that, but do please read this remarkable book to find out for yourself. Dubai’s police chief, Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan al Tameem, made sure all three shooters received the death sentence after a fast track trial.

In January 2003, Sharad Shetty too was killed in Dubai by Chhota Rajan’s men. Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan tracked down the shooters and caught them just before they could escape to India. Four men were awarded the death sentence by Dubai’s authorities who wanted to teach Indian gangsters a lesson and make sure that Dubai did not become a crime capital.

After the 1993 Mumbai blasts, Chhota Rajan did not immediately turn against Dawood Ibrahim. Rather he stood by him and even took the stand that Dawood was not involved in the blasts. However, this changed slowly as Dawood continued to sideline Rajan. Chhota Rajan and Dawood’s key lieutenant Chhota Shakeel started warring. Chhota Shakeel killed Omprakash Kukreja, a Chembur based builder, who was a Rajan sympathiser. Rajan retaliated by killing the managing director of East West Airlines, Thakiyudeen Wahid, since Dawood was reputed to have invested in East West, India’s first private airline.

Zaidi tells us (more than once) that the turning point in the life of Mumbai’s gangsters came about in 1994, after the 1993 Mumbai riots and the ensuing bomb-blasts, when Bal Thackeray anointed Arun Gawli and Amar Naik as aamchi muley (our boys), Mumbai’s answer to Dawood and other Muslim dons during his annual rally at Shivaji Park. However, the events which unfolded after that, as described by Zaidi, left me confused, with more questions than answers.

We are told that in the rivalry amongst the “Hindu” gangsters, Shiv Sena gave Gawli “the royal ignore”. Ashwin Naik’s wife Neeta Naik was given a ticket for Mumbai corporation elections while Gawli’s wife Asha received nothing. Why did that happen? The answers are not too clear.

After the 1993 Mumbai blasts, Chhota Rajan, newly anointed as a Hindu don, killed six Muslims who were accused in the blasts. Dawood’s Lieutenant Chhota Shakeel (based in Dubai) declared war on the Shiv Sena in the late 1990s. Their first victim was former Mumbai Mayor Milind Vaidya who had been indicated by the Justice B. N. Srikrishna Commission inquiring into the 1993 Mumbai riots for unleashing violence against Muslims in Mahim. However, Milind Vaidya survived two attempts on his life. Many other Shiv Sena shaka pramukhs fell victim to Chhota Shakeel’s men. The police tried booking the gangsters under the draconian and non-bailable MCOCA, but when that didn’t work, they resorted to extra-judicial killings. Zaidi questions the real reason for the attacks on Shiv Sainiks. Were the killings being orchestrated by the Congress – NCP alliance, as alleged by former Shiv Sainik Narayan Rane? No, the killings had started even when the Shiv – Sena BJP combine was in power. Zaidi does not give a clear answer to this question. Instead, he talks of how Chhota Shakeel had unleased a similar attack against Gawli’s ABS which was becoming a serious threat to the Shiv Sena. Zaidi actually suggests that a political party (who could it be?) might have outsourced such killings to Chhota Shakeel. I found this part of this book very interesting, but equally rambling and hence, frustrating.

The growth of Mumbai’s Maharashtrian gangsters is intertwined with that of the exploitation of its mill-lands, leading to the development of malls and luxury apartments, none of which could have been achieved without the silencing of Mumbai’s trade-unions. In January 1997, trade union leader Datta Samant was gunned down near IIT Powai, most probably by Chhota Rajan’s men. Do read this exceptional book for more on this killing and the politics behind it.

One of the most interesting topics covered by Zaidi is that of encounter killings. As we all have come to know, an encounter killing is usually the cold-blooded murder of a man previously detained by the police or of someone whom the police could have arrested, an instance of law-keepers turning law-breakers by taking on the roles of judge, jury and executioner. We are told that in 1997, after Vijay Salaskar killed Amar Naik in an encounter, he held a celebratory press conference where he explained how his team had cornered Amar who fired at the police team, forcing them to fire back and kill him. Then an Indian Express reporter asked Salaskar, ‘How is it that Amar Naik who was using a Glock, could not even injure you or any of your team members while you with an ordinary revolver could kill him and escape unhurt?' Salaskar responded with a disdainful laugh and his explanation was hollow.

In many cases when the police are under pressure to catch a murderer, they tend to arbitrarily arrest an innocent man, kill him and claim to have killed the murderer in an encounter. When was what happened in August 1997, after music magnate Gulshan Kumar was killed by the mafia. Six days after Gulshan Kumar’s murder, a builder named Natwarlal Desai was also killed by the mafia in Nariman Point, not far from the State Legislative Assembly and the Secretariat. Ten days later as Ronald Mendonca took over as police commissioner of Mumbai, Assistant Police Inspector Vasant Dhoble and his team killed a man named Javed Fawda in an encounter and claimed that they had killed Gulshan Kumar’s killer. It turned out that the man killed in the encounter was a peanut seller named Abu Sayama who had gone missing earlier. The autopsy showed that Sayama had been riddled with bullets at close range and also run over with a vehicle. Encounter deaths came under a cloud.

One of Chhota Rajan’s lieutenants who went by the moniker D. K. Rao survived two police encounters. In one encounter, D. K. Rao and others were in a Maruti Esteem. The police arrived in a Maruti Gypsy van and fired without any warning. The bodies were riddled with bullets and dumped in a van. One of gangsters cried out in pain and police fired more shots. D. K. Rao took four more bullets in his feet. When the bodies were taken to a morgue at KEM Hospital in Parel, D. K. Rao got up and screamed.

Zaidi does not hide his blushes as he talks of corruption within the police and the scale of the corruption amazed me. When Chhota Rajan accepted a 20 crore supari (contract) to kill a two-timing drug dealer named Amjad Khan, he paid 5 crores to an encounter specialist serving with the Anti-Narcotics Cell of the crime branch to help him identify his target. The encounter specialist got a sub-inspector to point out Amjad Khan to the hit men.

For the mafia, it seems that everything is available for a price in Mumbai. For example, when drug-lord Nareyi Khan was undergoing trial at the City Civil and Sessions Court in South Mumbai’s Fort area (after being booked under the Narcotics Drugs and Pyschotropic Substances Act by by the Narcotics Control Bureau), he bribed the police to give his access to lady-love Ayesha. Whenever Nareyi Khan was brought to the court for trial, the cops apparently allowed him to use an unused court room to have sex with Ayesha!

However, what got me seriously thinking is Zaidi’s insinuation that Mumbai police specifically targeted certain gangs and decimated them, while allowing others to survive. For example, we are told that between 2006 and 2009, encounter specialists of the Mumbai police specifically chased down Chhota Rajan’s men and more than thirty were killed. The fear psychosis created was such that no new shooters join Rajan’s gang and many left. The police also warned builders from paying any money to Rajan. Rajan suffered big losses and was crippled. Wasn’t Rajan one of Thackeray’s Hindu dons, I wondered?

These days it is well-known that India nurses a dream of killing Dawood Ibrahim who is holed up in Pakistan. Zaidi tells us that in the summer of 1998, three of Chhota Rajan's men - Farid Tanasha, Vicky Malhotra and Bunty Pandey – were trained by India’s intelligence bureau and sent to Karachi to assassinate Dawood Ibrahim at a mosque. They failed because the weapons were not delivered on time. However, they managed to safely return to India.

I could go on and on, but I am going to stop here and repeat my recommendation that Byculla to Bangkok is a must-read book for anyone interested in Mumbai’s mafia.

Book Review: Just For You by Rahul Saini

Rahul Saini's Just For You reminded me of a story I read for my English language class as a high school student. An important football match is about to take place (somewhere in England) and the famous referee Mr. Potts is yet to arrive. One of the organisers gets a relative (his brother-in-law if I remember right) who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Potts, to don the referee’s uniform and do the honours. The makeshift referee does not have a clue about the game and he calls foul more often than necessary, declares a legitimate goal to be an offside one, shows the red card frequently and sends a record number of players off the ground. Naturally there is a furore. When the real Mr. Potts turns up towards the end of the game and finds out what has happened, he is angry and threatens to expose the masquerade. However, a famous sports writer saves the day for the organisers when he declares that Mr. Potts has stuck a blow for the future of the game by going out of his way to expose the dirt and scum which had crept into the game over a period of time.

In Just For You, Saini too goes to extreme lengths to poke fun at the latest trends in Indian writing in English – twenty somethings churning out light reads in atrocious English with plots and storylines revolving around hackneyed themes. Some of the books are co-authored. A host of literary agencies and editing services are in the market, in some cases these services are offered by the same agency.

I do not wish to spoil the story for my readers and so this is all that I will say: Protagonist Rohit Sehdev is a successful writer, thought not so young anymore, with a pretty live-in partner (Nisha) and a new book about to be launched. Rohit has a teaching job which leads to its share of hilarious situations. The award for the most popular work of fiction is up for grabs as is the possibility of being chosen by famous film maker Ravi Kapoor to provide a script for his next movie. A host of writers, younger than Rohit, such as Karun Mukharjee who detests Rohit and the Jeet-Neeti duo who are willing to even release (anonymously) a video of their love making to stay in the limelight, are snapping at Rohit’s heels. Rohit is brought down by his rivals and by D. K. De, a publisher who Rohit supposedly insulted in public. D. K. De made it big recently and his success allows him to indulge in his gayness with young writers such as Karun. To make things worse for Rohit, Nisha leaves him after a tiff about something which I’d rather not disclose here. Does Rohit manage to weather his storm? Can he make a comeback? Please do read this novel to find out for yourselves.

Just For You is well-written and is a good, light read. Published by Penguin Metro Reads, Just For You is definitely Fun, Feisty and Fast, and ideal for the Reader on the Go, as advertised on the Metro Reads’s website.

Book Review: Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar

I recently got Nagarkar’s Cuckold as a gift and since I’d been planning to read it for many years, I wasted little time in getting started. However, many things came up in between and it was only yesterday that I finally finished reading it. Since Cuckold was released in 1997, I’m going to keep this review really brief. At least, that’s the plan.

Set in Merwar and Chittor in the late 15th and early 16th century, Cuckold tells the story of Maharaj Kumar, heir to the throne of Mewar occupied by Rana Sangha, a Sisodia Rajput. Like any Rajput kingdom worth its salt, Mewar is constantly at war with its neighbours, in this case, Gujarat ruled by Muzaffar Shah II, Malwa ruled by Mahmud Khalji II and the Sultanate of Delhi ruled by Ibrahim Lodi. Towards the end of the novel, Central Asian upstart Babur makes an appearance.

I understand that Maharaj Kumar’s character is based on Thakur Bhojraj. Maharaj Kumar, dutiful son, upright, chivalrous, honest and good-at-heart human being, is a double cuckold. His first wife, a beautiful young woman with green eyes (who later attains fame as Mirabai) is in love with Lord Krishna and hence will not let him bed her. Mirabai is never mentioned by her name. Instead Nagarkar uses various descriptions ranging from “green eyes” to “the Saint” to refer to Mirabai. Krishna is also mostly referred to as “the Flautist” and various other names. Rather than take on multiple wives as was the norm in those days, Maharaj Kumar stays loyal to Mirabai, until he is finally persuaded to marry Sugandha, the daughter of Medini Rai, the Prime Minister of Malwa, one-time foe turned friend, for reasons of political expediency. On his wedding night, buffeted by so many worries, Maharaj Kumar fails to perform and the marriage to Sugandha doesn’t work out. Later Sugandha almost openly takes up with Maharaj Kumar’s half-brother Vikramaditya, Kumar’s sworn enemy and an aspirant to the throne, but Maharaj Kumar doesn’t retaliate against either Sugandha or Vikramaditya.

Nagarkar’s style of writing is in a similar to Steven Pressfield’s Afghan Campaign as he uses numerous modern day terminology while telling his tale. One comes across a Small Causes Court, a Court of Last Resort, an Institute of Advanced Military Tactics and Strategy and a Head of City Planning. Courage on the battlefield is rewarded with a "Veer Vijay". To some extent, this is because Maharaj Kumar is modern and revolutionary in his outlook. Sanitation and sewage worry him more than tradition and culture. Even as the Rajput kingdoms around Mewar bravely fall one by one to invading armies from the west, Maharaj Kumar starts a programme of modernization and reformation. Instead of fighting to the death, Mewar’s troops are trained to retreat in good order. Deception is treated as yet another strategy and Maharaj Kumar does not hesitate to use it when the situation so demands. Many battles are won but Maharaj Kumar is detested by many nobles and common folks for his deviation from Rajput values of chivalry and courage. Words such as “slimy rat”, “quick sands of shame” and “rancid rat” fugure in a ditty about Maharaj Kumar which does the rounds in Chittor. However, Maharaj Kumar does have his supporters and when Medini Rai defects to Mewar, he does so because Maharaj Kumar has gained a reputation as a man who would like to win his wars without losing many soldiers, a man without scruples, one who has no qualms about attacking his enemy from the rear, an untrustworthy liar and one who is prone to change his plans without much notice.

As Babur makes repeated forays into India, Maharaj Kumar tries to acquire muskets and cannon for his troops so that they are prepared for the inevitable faceoff with Babur. He is unsuccessful and when one hundred and twenty thousand brave Rajputs and their Muslim allies meet twenty thousand of Babur’s men at Khanua, the Rajputs lose. Maharaj Kumar had built an observation tower, intending for his father Rana Sangha to direct the battle from the top of the tower but Rajput ethics make the Rana treat the observation tower with disdain and instead march at the head of his troops, only to be grieviously wounded.

As we all know, the Rajputs lost out to the Islamic invaders from the West and were finally decimated by the Mughals. In all probability, if only they had ditched their chivalry and modernised their tactics and weaponry, their fate would have been different. Nagarkar admits in his Afterword that Cuckold is a work of fiction, though ‘a substantial quantum of history has inveigled itself into the novel.’

A telling example of the divergence in values between the Rajputs and their Muslim adversaries is demonstrated by Nagarkar in the course of his yarn. Much before Babur’s arrival in the novel, Prince Bahadur, the son of Sultan Muzaffar Shah, seeks asylum in Mewar. The Prince can be charming and his hosts wine and dine him for months on end. One night, in the course of drunken banter, as the inebriated men exchanged anecdotes of hilarious blunders committed by Malwa and Delhi armies, Prince Bahadur jovially mentions how his father had tricked Rana Sangha during a campaign many years ago. The Sultan had sent an emissary with a white flag to the Rajput camp, asking that the fighting be deferred by twenty four hours since the next day was a feast of Islam. The Rajputs agree and start partying. Early morning the next day the Gujarat soldiers attack, resulting in a massacre of close to three thousand Mewar soldiers. Despite such a lesson, the Rajputs don’t change their attitude, except for Maharaj Kumar who decides that one must conduct war as if the life of one’s country depends on it. War needs to be conducted by all means, fair and foul.

Maharaj Kumar comes across as a man driven by a sense of duty and destiny, one who loves children (though he has none), a man who would not cause pain to anyone unnecessarily, but would kill to save his clan and country. One cant help but love such a person, though such a character is naturally the result of Nagarkar's hindsight.

One of the best things about Cuckold is the way Nagarkar conveys to his readers a feel of that era, its sounds, smells, sights and values. Rajput women seem to have had a fair amount of freedom and values were relatively liberal. A man accused by his young wife of impotence is ordered to prove his virility with a prostitute. When Maharaj Kumar’s second wife Sugandha sleeps around and gets pregnant with someone else’s child, it is treated as a bit of a joke. I do not know if all of this is historically accurate, but it can’t be denied that Nagarkar wields a powerful pen and writes very well.

For example, when describing a simple meal of Paunk (fresh jowar (sorgum) seeds) which Maharaj Kumar and Mirabai have while travelling within their Kingdom, Nagarkar tells us that 'Paunk is no ordinary food. It is ambrosia and an enigma. Which mortal would have thought of using crisp vermicelli savouries made from chickpea flour as a foil to the lightly roasted green and succulent corn of jowar picked fresh from the farm? Eaten soft and crunchy, it is deadly and unpredictable, but spike it with lemon and what you get is a collision and collusion of sweet, sour, and salty that’s likely to go down as one of the high points of one’s life.'

However, atleast once Nagarkar gets its wrong. While describing a Barasingha (swamp deer), Nagarkar informs us that 'The twelve-antlered one stood out, literally, head and shoulders above the rest of his tribe. His complexion was a russet gold. Even in the dark it would shine like a nimbus around him. He was atleast five feet tall, that’s not counting his horns. He was lean and tight and without a gram of fat. The sinews on his legs were made of steel cables.' Steel cables when the narrator is a 15th century prince??!!

One of the most interesting aspects of Cuckold is Nagarkar’s examination of Babur’s ideology as he invaded India. I should mention that Nagarkar has Maharaj Kumar receive intelligence about Babur much before he gets to India – his intelligence chief Mangal has an agent in Kabul who retrieves Babur’s discarded notes or manages to copy his diary and pass them on. As Maharaj Kumar reads Babur’s writings, he ruminates that 'Babur’s language has undergone a radical change since he came to Hindustan. It is only while talking about a war with us that he repeatedly speaks of a Holy War. What then does one call his wars with Ibrahim Lodhi and all the other Shia and Sunni chieftains, not to mention kings and sultans? It seems sad, not to say counterproductive, if one only has contempt for the people one has conquered, and all one wants to do is to dash, to quote Babur, the gods of the idolaters……………Even at the time when Babur attacked Bajaur on one of his earliest forays into India, he thought of himself as a defender of ‘the Faith’. He reverted to the ways of his ancestor Timur, sacked the town and massacred all the denizens, barring the few who managed to escape to the east, because they were not true believers. Now that he has assumed the throne in Delhi, he has begun to cast himself in the role of a Ghazi, Avenger in the name of God. Strange word that, avenger. For what slights and grievances, does Babur wish to axact vengeance from infidels on whom he has never set eyes nor had any social or other commerce? Our only crime seems to arise from an accident: that we were born to another faith. Since his victory over Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi, the Padshah has been razing temples and building mosques on the same sites or if time and funds are short, converting Hindu places of worship to that if Islam.'

Then Nagarkar suddenly changes tack and Maharaj Kumar has a counter-thought. 'Nothing special about that. We’ve done the same with Buddhist sacred places as well as mosques, as the Muslims have been doing with our temples since they first invaded India. …… Why this obsessive need to occupy the very precincts of a defeated belief? …. It is the naked assertion of brute power. The victor is signaling that the old order is dead and letting his subjects know who the new master is.'

I was left confused and could not really figure out whether Nagarkar thought Babur was a bigot or a shrewd warrior who used Islam to his advantage or just another conqueror who wanted to assert his power over those he had conquered.

On the whole, I would say that Cuckold is an excellent read, one I would highly recommend to everyone who enjoys fiction based on real history.