The Perfect Suicide
Author- Jalaj Shrivastava
Publisher- Delhi Printing and Publishing, Rs 212
This novel is full of unpredictable twists and it beautifully reproduces the 1970s’ Delhi. It will be especially interesting for anybody who grew up in the National Capital around that time, writes RAJESH KUMAR
The novel is a first by the author, an IAS officer who has also been in the IPS and worked as a Physics teacher at college level. And it all shows, sometimes overtly. There is a lot of emphasis on the correct rank, deputation rules, service matters and how the policemen behave. And it is this world that we are exposed to in this novel. To that extent, it is also a first in the genre, and a very appreciable one at that.
The story starts slowly and menacingly with a group of senior officers’ wives being taken hostage and held captive for 50 hours or so, probably by some Kashmiri or ISIS or Al Qaeda terrorists. The author has deliberately skipped any specific mention of any group, or any religious allusion.The book’s plot plunges in a sudden and unannounced twist into a totally different game, of a heist.
One is reminded of a series of Hollywood movies and their copies in Bollywood, and one is almost forced to wonder if there will be anything new in this novel. And that’s exactly what the author wants. He deliberately chooses a familiar and predictable plot, and then introduces a twist, as if teasing the reader out of the predictability. The beauty of this novel lies in the treatment of the several twists and tangents, weaving a web (an inspired cover design should give a hint) leading to different stories, and a book which should not be rushed through.
The plot is utterly gripping, and even if the author writes in somewhat difficult language, he has the gift of the word, and an unusual, very original and educated humour like when he says, “Before his voice came out, his chutzpah had left him much earlier,
as if travelling at Mach 2.”
The average reader would need to Google about the concept of Mach speeds to appreciate this wry and matter-of-fact humour. Another certain delightfully naughty way of referring to a squeeze is, “When the outer curvature of your balls matches the inner curvature of someone’s competent palm, you are truly doomed.”
Then again, “You have heard of a pin drop... now you could have heard a short and curly drop...” The dose of adult humour is plentiful, but tongue-in-cheek, careful and almost reverential, never crass or with cuss words one is used to, and that is a delightful change that puts this book apart as a must-read.
The novel starts and often goes on and on in technical details of arms and explosives and the wiring and firing mechanisms, something the average reader has no stomach for, for almost eighty pages. The author can even be faulted at this point for trying to show off some irrelevant knowledge he alone has. But then, as you cross page 250, everything makes sense.
The seemingly superfluous attention to details, the music and food, the explosives and internet speeds, it all starts making sense at the right point. The author has rightly suggested the book to be read twice, as small details and events will all make sense then. The book does suffer from an apparent overdose of details, but one soon realizes that they are actually crucial to the next twist.
It is a very “Delhi” novel. Not just in the setting of its locations, but even in the events of at least the last fifty years. The legends of Sundar Daku, the mysterious encounter of Satbir Gujjar, the Connaught Place shootout, the era of Khalistani militancy, the Kashmir issue and various other events, even details of the rough region east of Yamuna, have been cleverly interwoven. You might vaguely remember some news report from your younger days suddenly being detailed by someone now, and that is where this storytelling scores beautifully.
Read it purely as a series of events which are all possible and credible, for just one reason that so many of them have happened in the past, in our Delhi.The storyline has numerous flashbacks, dating to an era of PCOs and STD booths, when Classic cigarettes and Black label whiskey were the top luxury brands. These have all been faithfully reproduced. His meandering of the plot through these flashbacks is terse and immensely readable for the accuracy and attention to details.
The minor reference to the way Sansi tribe used to train their boys into crime in the past has been written well. The author has written even about the checking of cars under their bonnet in hotel entrances. His suggestion to read the book twice is for the simple reason that there are several small details, discreetly included in the first few chapters, which suddenly make sense in the thriller after another two hundred pages. A second reading, unless one reads the book carefully in one go, is recommended.