Johnny gone down is a racy, entertaining piece of fiction that resembles a taut Hollywood thriller that you see often but soon forget.
The story unfolds in an Indian railways compartment, a famililar setting for most desis.But from then on the book takes a roller coaster ride spanning MIT, Boston, to Phnom Penh, Cambodia ,stopping briefly at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand racing forward to Rio de Jenero, Brazil, back again to the U.S before taking a final plunge in India.
The Protagonist Nikhil Arya, is believable and familiar at first as an MIT graduate waiting for a job in NASA. What happens to his life after his "innocent vacation' to Cambodia with his friend 'Sam' is unbelivable and overtly imaginative even for a work of fiction. The hero sheds his skin from an ambitious young man to a genocide escapee to a monk with relative ease. But may be thats what the author intended. Nikhil and Nick and Monk Namche and Coke Buddha and Johnny pass through our mind like a typical Bollywood heroine in a song video with her trademark costume changes. None stays with us.
The author has tried to juggle unsuccessfully with philosophy and mafia, family and detachment,friendship and karma yogaleaving too many balls in the air. The reader ends up confused while the story ends in a typical bollywood fashion.
Priced at just Rs 99 /- this book is aimed at entertaining the masses. One may even find a movie adaptation soon and then we will forget it. We have too many examples to prove that.
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