by Ashwin Sanghi
Genre : Fiction
"One cannot avoid death unless one is already dead.Even then one cannot avoid the endless cycles that follows."
The above quote from the novel is so apt and comforting in these Covid-19 time.
The novel starts brilliantly in Doklam and with a lot of promise. But Sanghi doesn't meet the reader's expectation as the pace just doesn't slowdown but almost stops before it picks up for a while before it is again brought down to a painful trot. The author kills you slowly as he strays away from the main story to narrate Xuanzang's travels to India which lasted for over 19 years. This completely breaks the pace of narration as it keeps to start,long stop, start, long stop formula. Sanghi could have easily used a single sentence or at the maximum a paragraph or even a page to reveal why Xuanzang's travel was important just as he did it for Faxian's travel to India or Bodhidharma's travels to China.
I had hoped this novel would beat his Chanakya's Chant but it is worse than his Krishna Key where at least the pace was good with extremely well formed characters. Also, the author doesn't understand the difference between AI and genetic mutation which he seems to confuse while writing the book. I laughed out loud when I came across his explanation of the name Ikoalikum, the head of the mysterious tribe. Sanghi must have used Google translate to translate I Akankaramazhikum would have made more sense but I had to remind myself Sanghi probably doesn't know Tamizh or have Tamizh friends. Also he has hurriedly tried to cover everything just because of Doklam conflict and Xi's visit to Mahabalipuram.
The only good thing about the book is Hanuman. Strange I should be writing this on Hanuman Jayanti. The ending is almost satisfactory but getting through the book was a challenge. If you like challenges and since we are in a lock down, you might try reading the book.
