The Calcutta Chromosome

     Intriguing title, and a pretty fish on the cover made me pick this book from a second hand shop from Moore market in March. Story starts slowly at a unknown future date, but steady enough to look for what is coming next.? Antar, a data scientist of sorts discovers L.Murugan's notes refuting Sir Ronald Ross's brilliance.

Who's Ronald Ross?

   Sir Ronald Ross  (13 May 1857 – 16 September 1932) was a British doctor who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on malaria. He discovered that malaria was transmitted through mosquitoes, and this discovery led to the ways of finding cure to Malaria.

    From the unknown future date, the story goes back to the end of twentieth century, enter Prof.L.Murugan, and the momentum pick-ups like an express train. The brashness, the wit, and the expletive laden dialogues of Prof.L Murugan gradually grow on the reader. I wanted to know more about why Prof.Murugan is ready to give his life and leave a cushy job to go to Calcutta. L.Murugan comes with a theory of an Indian hand in Sir Ronald Ross's discovery of malaria parasite. Who are those people? Why are they hiding behind Ronald? Ronald is just a tool, but who wields the tool?

   Murugan meets Urmila and Sonali at an award ceremony of a famous fictional Bengali writers in Calcutta. The two beautiful sari clad women, Urmila and Sonali are an integral part of the story, they are vivid, may be the vividness has lot more to do with my exposure to modern cinema than the authors caliber. And then the story goes to a narrative from the late 1890's, describing the time when Sir Ronald Ross came across malaria for the first time, his extraordinary Indian helper, and his insufficient knowledge about malaria. Pulling of three different times in a short book is not a mean task, but Amitav has done that with supreme clarity.

What I didn't like?

 Things I did n’t like has more to do with technical aspects than the plot or character development. The usage of  “suddenly” as a tool to bring twists in the narrative is never easy to carry along, especially if the author has a tendency to use it too often. It stands out, and makes the flow of story artificial. Of course fiction is made up of coincidences, but the charm of a good book is to paint a realistic tone to the coincidences.

   Instances of building climatic hype too often can fall flat at time, Amitav rises the hype too high, just to burst it in the end like a prick to a balloon. I felt like a fool for believing in the tension. Unless there is a very strong reason, it is never a good ploy to raise the tempo too high.

  May be it is a style thing, or a personal preference, I never liked too much of semicolons and colons- standing in the way of the rhythm of the words on the page. It is like humps on a road already filled with potholes. Far too many distractions in that aspect.

 In the end, The Calcutta chromosome falls into too many categories; thriller, science fiction, medical mystery, colonial history- a genre defying book. A decent read.

Anything for you Ma'am

Author: Tushar Raheja

When my friend gifted this book to me two months ago, I thought I got hold of a book that was everywhere around me. Most of the book shops had this on their Indian writing section, and all the pavement book sellers had a pirated copy, a girl in red salwar on a sky blue background asking every passer by to pick it up. Just a bit of curiosity about a book on the IIT phenomena, IITian turned author genre.

I didn't exactly love this book, but this could have been a script for a bollywood romantic comedy genre than a novel. There are too many coincidences, and though I agree that coincidences does happen in real life , the way in which those coincidences crop up every now and then makes it a bit unreal. Especially the part where three IITians meeting up in train and they get adjacent seats in the same compartment. This could happen in real life, and such things has happened for everyone, but for me the way it was treated felt a bit made up. Fiction is not about making up a story from incidents, is n't it is more about making the reader relate and accept the fiction as a possible reality.

For me, being from south of India, it is hard to differentiate a Sardarji from another, unless they are absurdly different both horizontally and vertically. A Sardarji too might be confused when faced with a similar looking South Indians. Whatever be it, it is hard to digest that a policemen can take a random Sardarji for a dacoit, and a bald dacoit in that. Just to create tension ?

The tone of the book, the patronizing tone with a lot of inspiration from P.G Wodehouse and early writers may not go down well with everyone. Some of the dialogues are extremely dull, and pathetically artificial. I might be too harsh on the book, but this book is definitely not for someone who has already read a lot books , for they may feel a bit let down.

The bottom line is that though the book makes a valiant effort in portraying the predicaments of a young romantic, it falls desperately short of realism by a long way. A dull train journey.

The world of Nagraj

Author: R.K. Narayan

As always, it is a pure delight to read through rather travel along with Nagraj in the mystical town of Malgudi. There are no big twists just for the sake of impressing the reader nor does it have a new storyline to talk loud about. Nevertheless it is refreshing to look into people through R.K. Narayan’s eyes.

Nagraj is a wealthy man with an ancestral residence and a life long ambition of writing a book about Narada, the mythological figure. Childless and nearing his middle age he loves his wife Seeta and spends most of his time in his ancestral home. One day Tom, Nagraj’s brother’s son turns up at Nagraj’s house and vows never to return to his father Gopu. Tom, like every unguided teenager gets into trouble and Nagraj could not even bring up to talk anything to him. Gopu blames Nagraj for Tom’s predicament, and Seeta compels him to question Tom about his whereabouts.

Later Tom's problems makes Nagraj wonder why did he have to take care of an unnecessary responsibility and leads towards a predictable but certainly engaging climax.

More than the story, the thought process of the protagonist is the most curios feature of R.K. Narayan’s writing and he does not fail this time too.

One Night @ the Call center

Author: Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat’s second book is more of a film script unintentionally sent to the publisher than written to reflect the call centers mushrooming at every available space in the metros. Obviously it failed to impress me in any way. Five point someone was good, it had an insider’s account of IIT and one could easily relate to the characters and more than everything Five point someone did not have brainless flow of narration that ON@CC enjoys from the beginning. One night at call center fails miserably on this point, the narration is too inane to accept being true as vouched by the author.

ON@CC is a story of some call center employees staring at downsizing and a rude bossy boss, Mr. Bakshi. Characterization is not too bad, but the narration is completely immature and foolish. The anti-American approach and the assumption of all-Americans-are-fools may not go well with everyone. As usual, like what you see in the movies there is a romantic story dragged along with the main story. The broken romantic relationship between two of the call centre employees is restored in the most absurd way one could imagine, I can’t even imagine how the author thought of such a weird notion to spoil a marriage. And finally to manage the downsizing they find a ridiculous and completely unacceptable way to make a happy and lived happily ever after sort of climax. With a little more masala (There is enough masala already) ON@CC could do well as a film; for it was originally made to the silver screen.

Five Point Someone

Author: Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone is a kind of autobiography with a lot interesting excerpts from the life in an IIT. One need not be an IITian to understand the novel, though you may pick up some of their own jargons at the end of the novel. As the author clearly mentions, it is not about how to get into the IIT or what to do once you get into the IIT, it is about what not to do in the IIT. The book is narrated in the first person by Hari, with some small passages by his friends Ryan and Alok, as well as a letter by Hari's girlfriend Neha Cherian who happens to be the daughter of Prof.Cherian, the head of their department and the most orthodox of personalities one can ever see in real life.

It is more of reminiscences than a story. Three boys from completely different backgrounds meet at the IIT, and their life takes a new turn. Until the higher secondary level each of them was first in their own school, and they were pets of their teachers.As soon as they enter the IIT, they find themselves as five pointers. Five is their assessment mark out of ten, and Five is the minimum mark to clear a subject. They feel that IIT is inhibiting their freedom of creativity, make them mug unnecessary things just for the purpose of high grades. They wonder how such anti-creative alumni is making India proud.

The most important aspect of this book is the ability of the author to make a reader relate to the characters. We can see a part of Hari in each of us, one who does not believe in himself even to take a simple decision. Ryan is the one each of us would like to be, the super smart, gutsy, humorous character. We always mock at people like Alok, the fat, a little selfish, ungainly looking guy.

The romantic angle is provided by Neha and Hari. Though some part of their romantic story is slightly unacceptable, one can’t possibly shirk the possibility of such things happening in modern India. Even the overall structure of the novel is quite fresh and appealing, though there are some expected, unnecessary twists to make it clear that the story is going through its final phase.

The inscrutable Americans

Author : Anurag Mathur

Genre : humor

A highly rated book by an Indian author on the experiences of a clueless Indian student on American soil, rather concrete as put by Mathur. It might disappoint many of the expectant readers the moment you forget that the book was set in 90's when a dollar returned a mere 13 rupees.

PLOT:
Gopal, the Indian student at the American University finds himself hard to adjust with the change of culture at his new found land. Along with Randy, the typical change-girlfriends-every week American he experience a new world in the University campus.His bewilderment continues from the American girls,the new gadgets, the naked billboards, the telephone and to his multi-channeled color TV. The book is nothing but a humorous account of Gopal from landing in the US to his flight back to India. Some part of the book is cliched, monotonous, predictable and very filmy. Especially the return journey to India.