I had not read a book for a long time – and especially not one written by an Indian. May be I was predisposed on what popular fiction was all about and I had presumed all Indian authors to write sentimental mills & boon kind of stuff. Then of course the Slumdog Millionaire became a big hit and everyone heard the name Vikas Swarup. The fact that he was an IFS officer working in the Indian Missions abroad made his more exotic!
Then the other day I was browsing through a book store and saw the Six Suspects – and picked it up impulsively. My gut feeling was right. The book is racy, well written and has memorable characters. It grips you write from the beginning and holds your attention right through to the end of 558 pages.
One will come across most headlines from TV & newspapers being used here as part of the story – and of course the main plot is the murder of a small time model moonlighting as a bargirl by the violent son of a powerful man which has already become part of our urban folklore.
The story is based in Delhi but it does move to Calcutta, Chennai, Jaipur, Allahabad, Varanasi & the Andaman Islands. The places are described vividly and the one does get sucked into the atmosphere of the events as they unfold in various locations.
But the colourful are the characters. They come from all parts of the country and the globe.
There is the eastern UP politician, the Delhi bureaucrat, the slum dweller from Mehrauli, a Bengali, a Rajasthani, a Godman, an American, a Nigerian and an Onge (the Stone Age people of Andaman)! The women too are interesting – one being a blind girl from Bhopal, a victim of the gas tragedy. But no one is all good or all bad. All the characters are grey though some are heroic.
Vikas Swarup is evidently an avid ready of the news and his imagination helps him create situations that explain the happenings around the country in a micro scale. Yet the best part is the pace that he maintains throughout the tale.
It was a good read and I made a good decision to pick this book. The good feeling began right when the sales person at the store told me that the price of the book had come down to Rs.235 from Rs.350!