The Rozabal Line

After reading 'The Davinci code' I had tried to familiarise myself with various theories connected with the life of Jesus Christ including his having spent a considerable amount of time in India. It was therefore with much scepticism that I approached The Rozabal Line by Ashwin Sanghi.  I was not sure whether it would provide me with something novel and fresh. I was pleasantly surprised. I am happy that I stand corrected.

The book begins with the revelation of the tomb of Jesus in Kashmir -Rozabal and from there goes on an international roller coaster ride with an impressive array of characters  across the boundaries of space and time. The chapters are short and crisp and follows an almost fluid like motion - very much like a grain of sand. But each chapter is like the grain of sand in an hourglass; each grain filling up a crucial piece of the story and inching towards a scintillating climax.
The author has done his research and it clearly shows in work. The book is very Indian and hence one finds a delightful intepretation of history from an uncompromising Indian perspective. The etymology of some words are so shockingly close home yet oblivious to the average Indian mind that it sends us on a detective hunt for intepretations of  siimilar words dispersed throughout the book.  He has done a commendable job of being patriotic while avoiding the narrow minded nationalism that we are so famous for. Thus there is no dull lecture on the extinction of the 'bharatiya sanskar' due to the import of western culture. I won't call him the Dan Brown of India. That would degrade him. His work is fiercely independent with enough masalas mixed to provide a wholesome entertainment. I believe that this book will send us on a journey to rediscover the myths, folklore and traditions that we believe we are so familiar with. It did that to me.


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Johnny gone down

Johnny gone down is Karan bajaj's( karan bajaj) second offering after the successful venture 'Keep off the grass'.
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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The Venitian Betrayal

This Cotton Malone thriller by Steve Berry along the lines of 'the Da vinci Code' is a part truth-part fiction thriller involving the lost tomb of Alexander, a draught that that can cure AIDS and the political turmoils in a
fictional Central Asian Republic formed by the union of states like Kyrgiasthan, Kazakhistan etc.The CAR is ruled by Irina Zovastina who fashions herself after Alexander the great and derives most of her ideologies from Homer's Iliad. Her quest to find the tomb forms a rather shaky crux of the story.
I found the book to be good in patches. The book is not a thriller per se. There are small chapters hanging in there without contributing to thrills. The chapters are small like the DaVinci Code but sometimes too small. They don't convey much. The characters are half baked and it would have been better if the story had less but strong characters than a multitude of 'ghosts'.The cure for AIDS , the politics behind it, etc together with the tomb of one the most enigmatic conquerors of all times makes an explosive mix of a storyline but it completely fizzes out especially towards the end.
I will suggest this book to anyone who just wants to kill time while reading a book. Not recommended for a serious reading.