Q and A - Vikas Swarup

Ever since emergence of "Indian Writers" on the literary scenes, there has been a rush amongst people to start writing. Some good and some ... not so good.

The entire book has a negativity attached towards it. There aren't many pages where you don't read about a bad thing happening to the characters in the book.

I agree to the fact that India as a country lacks few things. We might not have the best of the regulators, honest people and kind hearted people but there ARE a few people who are absolutely wonderful. The book portrays India as the nation having the biggest slums, where train robberies are common-place, where no one can be honest and make his living without any unethical/illegal act, where there are two sides to everything. I know these are very hard words against a book that has been made available in 15 countries and a motion picture is planned around the plot.

A typical masala film end plot where the hero gets the heroine, punishes all the criminals, helps his friends achieve his dreams and live happily ever after. The last act is adopted and as they say, is INSPIRED from one of the biggest bollywood blockbusters of all time - Sholay. There is more to it but I think there is no point putting it in words here but there is a certain character who says he can't reveal the actual thing. He would instead give a hint. Here is my hint. The lead character in the book, whenever in a fix, does whatever his coin tells him to do. He tosses the coin and if it's a head, he takes the right decision and if it's a tails, he would take the wrong decision and somehow it is always heads. Sounds like Sholay?

However there were few things that I certainly liked about Q and A. After reading about half of it, I knew the book is not up to the expectations and I should stop reading it but something kept my interest alive and I completed it. I don't know why, but I kept reading it, enjoying some jokes (since may be I can relate to them).

All in all an interesting read but not upto the expectations.

ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON August 21, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND