BOOK
REVIEW
TITLE:
THE BRAHMIN-a novel
AUTHOR:
RAVI SHANKAR ETTETH
PUBLISHER: WESTLAND, 2018
PRICE:
PAPERBACK, Rs. 350/-
Tales
Of The Blood Flower
Ravi Shankar Etteth - journalist, political
cartoonist, illustrator, author, bon
vivant, has recently offered up his fifth novel. The Brahmin is anchored around the spymaster in King Ashoka’s Court,
at Pataliputra in legendary Magadha. It is a frolic of a book with the Chanakya-like
figure of the spymaster as the main mast.
There is therefore a good deal of cloak and
dagger, combined with swashbuckling action. And relentless description, fuelled
by powerful, visual, imagery. Description that appears carefully researched and
appropriate to a period novel. At the same time, there is the constant and
unsettling politics of war, in the presence of the fantastic and ambitious- the
chosen method of advancement in that setting and time. But marinated, from the
first word to the last, in the juices of myth and epic possibility as the final
ingredient.
The individual characterisation however, is
overwhelmed by the narrator’s voice and omniscience throughout. There is a
great deal of tell, and not an awful lot of show. And as a reader, you want the
characters to speak, more often than not, for themselves, however clever they
are made to sound by their agent- the narrator. Colonel Tom Parker may have
over- managed Elvis. Hindsight and criticism reveals all.
But leaving this aside, it is a gripping
intermingling of stories, of shadows and murders, and concealed motives. And
story- telling comes naturally to this author.
It represents his imaginative fecundity. As proof, it has already run to five novels in a period
of just sixteen years. This, in addition
to a cluster of day-jobs in the media.
There is little mention of the historical
Emperor Ashoka’s moment of epiphany after his winning and very killing battles
with Kalinga. No mention of his subsequent conversion to a pacifist and infrastructure-building
Buddhism.
Certainly, that would have complicated the plot
of this book and nuanced its pace, perhaps fatally. Or perhaps Etteth is saving
it for a sequel.
This then, is the bloodthirsty Ashoka, though
he plays, even less than his queen, only a cameo role in the book. It is of the
period before he turned over his philosophical leaf, and he appears glowering,
unpredictable, full of threats.
There is
thrilling skullduggery of the Game Of
Thrones variety in this book on the
Magadhan times, woven in with ninja
warrior clones who are in fact,Chinese, and stay-on Greek soldiers, from
Alexander the Great’s visit.
Mention of Ravana, the great Lankan king, comes
and goes in the narrative, along with his nuclear weapon- the golden scythe. In
fact, by the end of the book, we learn there were two- a good scythe and a bad
one, and the Brahmin plus the queen, on their travels through the mazes and
corridors of power, secure both. It is a touch of the Holy Grail in duplicate,
for God and Satan, one of each, in a Temple of Doom kind of way.
The mysterious Blood Flower, a woman, but
naturally, is definitely a stealth phantom dealer of death, the very best, in
the conceptual and practical hierarchy of assassins. That she gets killed in
the Brahmin’s presence, at court, even as a scheming Ambassador of Kalinga is
exposed, by her own sister warrior no less, is what the script writes for the
hero.
A hero that escapes a knife attack himself by a
whisker of well-judged movement in the self-same climax scene.
At times what’s going on in the book is a bit
of a blur. It is difficult to follow the sequence of events. It makes you long
for it to be turned into a screenplay, and then a movie, that becomes easy to keep
up with. One can rewind to learn who is doing what to whom. Besides- a book
that would make for an interesting movie or a TV serial is good news. If I were
the author, I would be smiling at this, wouldn’t I?
But outside the book’s purview, is the enduring
historical legacy of Ashoka, besides the wide roads he built, that the author
does refer to. There is the suggestion of strength, rule- of-law and justice,
made by Ashoka’s best known symbol - the Ashok
Stambh, almost the official symbol and seal of the Republic of India today.
In the end, it is a simple thing. The warrior
spymaster’s most trusted bodyguard and assassin, the Chinese woman Hao, whom he
had rescued from execution, is the Blood Flower Dao’s sister. The Blood Flower,
quite the professional, has been killing members of the harem and other
important members in the inner circle. Most of it has the imprint of the known
suspect –neighbouring Kalinga, and its agents, about to be conquered by Ashoka.
That’s where it starts, with a signature murder,
breach of security, and threats to Ashoka’s queen Asandhimitra. The queen too
has her secrets, in a sub-plot of her own-something to do with the gloves she
wears to conceal a bracelet, and a certain crescent shaped birthmark just above
her wrist.
And wait, the spymaster Brahmin does meet the
Buddha in the closing pages of the novel. There are blessings, gifts exchanged,
and the fragrance of flowers. Then there are the war horses for Hao, (who, by
now, tends to rest her head on the Brahmin’s shoulder from time to time), and Himself;
and the need to ride away to another adventure. Heigh Ho, Silver Away!
For: The Sunday Pioneer, BOOKS
(894
words)
April
29th, 2018
Gautam
Mukherjee
