Google
 

Friday, September 7, 2007

Book review: Q & A

Name: Q&A

Genre: Fiction

Author: Vikas Swarup

Publishers: Doubleday

Price: Rs 395

My rating: 4.5/5 (Must read)


It starts with “I have been arrested. For winning a quiz show”

It ends with “I don’t need it anymore. Because luck comes from within”

And throughout the 300 pages in between, it keeps you riveted, and leaves you simply mesmerized. Whatever be the genre of books you naturally enjoy, this is one book, you will definitely enjoy.

This is the story of an 18 year old boy, from the slum of Dharavi in Mumbai, who goes on to win a billion rupees in a quiz game show called ‘Who will win a Billion’. The boy – Ram Mohammad Thomas – narrates the story of his life, and how he won the game show, and also found a wife, a life long friend and a sister – all this, despite being a poor, uneducated orphan.

Ram is arrested on charges of having cheated to win the game show, by the producers of the show, who cannot – and do not - believe, and feel that it is utterly preposterous, that he had won out of sheer luck. He is saved by a lawyer named Smita, to whom he reveals, how he was able to pull off that unbelievable stunt. For each question in the game show, he recounts an incident in his life, from which he gained the knowledge that helped him answer that particular question.

The story is told in a non-chronological fashion, and is sequenced, instead, according to the questions he was asked in the quiz. As such, there are some episodes of his life, which occur at further stages in his life, being presented earlier in the book. Each of the episodes is a short story in itself with a fresh starting, a problem coming in the middle and how Ram solves it heroically, or escapes by chance. This is followed by the question that he was asked in the quiz. This line of narration increases the charm of the story and will keep you interested and guessing. Towards the end, the there are several twists in the story, which increase the thrill-factor to a crescendo and finish it off with a beautiful flourish.

The author Vikas Swarup touches upon several evils in the Indian society like child abuse, exploitation, fraud, murder, prostitution, through which the hero goes through. The writing style is artistically brilliant. Vikas Swarup paints his characters, situations and events in a way akin to the screenplay of the movie. This adds so much of life to them, that you can actually “view” the story, and not just read it. It is a ready-to-make Bollywood movie story, complete with all the typical masala and one, you will thoroughly relish!

No comments: