THE CHANT OF THE KINGMAKER Chanakya’s Chant (A Must Read Book) Adi Shakti, Namo Namah! Sarab Shakti, Namo Namah! Prithum Bhagvati, Namo Namah! Kundalini Mata Shakti Mata Shakti, Namo Namah Politics is a a dirty game. And Chanakya’s Chant further strengthens this opinion. It is a fast paced novel, based around the topics of power, betrayal, love and ambition. Perfect ingredients for a masala potboiler. Two plots run parallel to each other. One set in the present and the other 2300 years in the past. The story set in the third century BC, follows Chanakya the wily Brahmin who used every trick and mind games to ensure the unification of Northern India under the rule of Chandragupta Maurya. He is cold and calculating. And he is fueled by his rage for the King of Magadha, who has wronged him and killed his father. As you read through the pages, you are disgusted, amazed and awed by the wicked brain of a genius. A simple Brahmin, uses the power of his brains, to build an empire. He preys on the mind of his foes, pits men against each another, orders assassinations, uses every trick possible and does something that no one had done before then: he unified the small kingdoms into the glorious Mauryan Empire. The end justifies the means. Chanakya is reborn in the present age as Gangadhar Mishra, a brahmin who becomes street smart under the tutelage of his first employer. He too has ambitions and he uses Chandini Gupta, the daughter of a pan shop owner, for his purpose. The story follows him, as he takes the young girl under his guidance and through every guile and trick, take her from being a slum dweller to being the Prime Mininster of the Nation. The situations in both the eras are same. Corruption has eaten away the state, the men are divided on some pretext or another. There is infighting and the underbelly rots. Ashwin Sanghi has done good research on the life of Chanakya and it shows. The book is fairly accurate in its historic account. For the present age, he has used some of the latest scams to add on to the masala value of the novel. The plot is fast and the writing is crisp. As a matter of fact, it is a good script for a future movie. This was the only negative point I feel goes against the book. Too much masala in between will make you think it was written for a Bollywood flick. This is Mr. Sanghi’s second book and the style is similar to the first one (The Rozabal Line). The going back and forth between two ages and basing it on a historic event; Ashwin Sanghi maybe India’s answer to Dan Brown. Statutory Warning: Not meant to be read on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 20:29:24 +0000
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