With Vikram Chandra’s latest book - ‘Sacred Games’ we get a real insight of the crime and corruption stricken life of the underworld city - Mumbai. Mumbai is not just the background in the book but plays a major role as the protagonist.
‘There’s an energy about the place that’s unmistakable and very, very seductive,’ Chandra says. He added that citizens of Bombay love to complain about the city endlessly, but also will defend it fearlessly against others making the same complaints.
The book weighing 900 pages is completed by the renowned author in the span of seven years during which he could have been easily spotted with cops and gangsters. The book follows two characters operating a life on completely different ethical terms - a Sikh policeman, Sartaj Singh and Ganesh Gaitonde, a famous Hindu Bhai.
The novel opens with an argument pertaining between the two lead characters. Gaitonde is a fascinating character, who spellbounds readers with information about his own life and subsequently provides the reader a treat of psychology of human mind. The two characters meditate and reflect on the significance of existence and death, and Chandra beautifully connects them with the major issues such as poverty, prostitution, class, religion and the gangsters, which as in today’s world work as a corporations and thus exercise control. The characters speak in the slang of the city and the underworld.
So, Chandra has done his best to provide a ‘GLOSSARY’ in the book to help readers sail through the language. After Suketu’s ‘Maximum City’ it is the latest to hit the same track
PEEK-A-BOO
#HIS BOOKS
1) Debut - Red Earth and Pouring Rain
2) Love and Longing in Bombay
3) Sacred games
