Thursday, July 30, 2009

Sacred Games

After reading Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games, I felt like I was suddenly leaving. Leaving Mumbai and all the grit and grime and fantasy of India’s maximum city. Barring Shantaram, I don’t think I have read another book based in this wondrous city (and there have been quite a few) which took you so much into the lives and motivations of the characters which inhabit it. This could have been another cop and thief story, but Chandra turned it into a behemoth of a book (the hardback version is 900 pages) and turned it into a multiple character study of people who you can believe would represent a cross section of Mumbai society.

The basic thread of the storyline goes like this: Sartaj Singh is a police inspector almost into middle age, who is disillusioned with most of what life had to give him. One day he gets a tip off that Ganesh Gaitonde, India most notorious gangster is in Mumbai and in hiding. On reaching there Gaitonde tries to talk to Sartaj, but eventually ends up killing himself. The rest of the story deals with the lives of Gaitonde and Sartaj and how it ended up at that confrontation.
However, there are a lot of subplots involving other characters. But none of these seem to bother you, and they take you along with the flow of the main thread. There is Katekar, a constable who was Sartaj’s assistant for so long in his cases, and his wife and kids. Then there is Sartaj’s mother, and her past. A brutal chapter is spent on elaborating on the trauma she and her family faced during the partition. There is also a upper class woman and the case of somebody trying to blackmail her. As well as the female CBI officer, and a chapter dedicated to her mentor’s training and initiation. Among others, there are also religious gurus and aspiring starlets who would go to any lengths to achieve their aims.

But undoubtedly, the narrative that captivates the most is Gaitonde’s himself. The rise from a small time crook, to a gangster of untold riches and who can command any woman he wants in his bed. There were times when I felt a bit uncomfortable with the portrayal of this supposed cold blooded killer with a humane touch, but then I realized, that is probably what Chandra wanted. Gaitonde was driven by the need for power, so much so that despite the fact that probably he wasn’t such a bad person at heart, it got overshadowed.

While reading this book, there are times when you feel you are actually there with the characters in the bustling metropolis they are a part of, especially if you have experienced this city first hand. And that, to me, is its biggest success.