Sacred Games
(Vikram Chandra)
Vikram Chandra has garnered a lot of praise for this huge tome that is SACRED GAMES. The story is that of the traditional cops and robbers. There is a good cop, Sartaj Singh and the baddie, Ganesh Gaitonde, a mafia chieftan. The story starts with an encounter between them in which the baddie dies. However, he reappears in Sartaj Singh''s dreams to tell his story.
Sartaj learns that there ia nuclear bomb that is to go off anytime. The dead Ganesh has to yeild the clues to its whereabouts.
The story examines the background of its two protogonists minutely. It takes us back to the story of partition when the mother of Sartaj had to flee from her ancestral home in Pakistan to Amritsar. It traces the antecedents of Ganesh Gaitonde and how he has to turn to crime to make his living, and later, to feed his greed for power and money. We learn about Anjali Mathur the intelligence cop and the dedication of her ilk that often saves nations from annihilation. We get a look into the working of the glamour world, how stars are born. How many people flirt with stardom to find their dreams shattered and have to work on the periphery of the glamour world to eke out a living (Jojo). Almost all the characters drift into Mumbai with a dream to make it big, be famous, make a lot of money. Some use Mumbai as a hiding place (Adil). Mumbai chews them up thoroughly and spits out a generic gaali spewing, chaalu street smart individual who is there to outsmart others and just SURVIVE.
The book offers some clues as to why a person turns into a criminal. It offers insight into the workings of the Mumbai mafia. It offers insight into the working of the Mumbai Police. It also offers insights into several North Indian caste prejudices and how these fester and can turn into a volatile situation.
Good enough ! The characters are well etched, the anecdotes are interesting, the story is well knit. At times the tale of the mafia don lags and drags. The language, hmm.. functional. Nothing lyrical or poetical about it. The Size , whew ! Intimidating ! 900 pages !!
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