The story
The story starts in an interesting note with the murder of
Anil Varshney by Taarak Vakil, who since his childhood was made to believe that
he is the final avatar of Vishnu- the Kalki by his guru, addressed as Mataji. Her
personal intentions are revealed later on as the plot moves forward. The primary
motive of the duo is to hunt out for the Krishna Key, which is a set of four
seals, all identical to each other on which are engraved motifs of a bull,
unicorn and a goat. The Krishna Key is said to be the doorway to the most
powerful energy on earth.
Anil Varshney, before the murder sends three of the four
seals to his friends Ravi Mohan Saini, Rajaram Kurkude and Devendra Chhedi,
keeping one with himself. Before the murder, professor Saini happens to visit
Anil Varshney, making him the prime suspect. The remainder of the story is an
account of the journey of Saini with his doctoral student Priya, the hide and
seek between the different characters and a set of carefully designed twists
and turns.
The positives
The story narrates the life of Krishna in parallel with the modern
drama, the former preceding the latter at the start of every chapter. Both the parallel
stories are made to blend with each other. The pace of narration of the story of
Krishna has been carefully planned to enable the reader to connect it with the present
day story.
The narration is dramatic and one gets the feel of watching a
movie in a theatre. The reader is made to swing between the past and the present
in a comfortable way, when moving back into the lives of the characters, providing
a rational basis for their behaviour and actions.
The twists and turns are many and evenly placed at the correct
moments when the reader would be in need of one. The reader is hinted at the
twists quite often as the story proceeds. When it’s time to unveil the sudden
turn of events, it is done and extracts are quoted from the preceding part of the
story to enable one to immerse in the joy of having noticed them earlier or
signalling the reader to take note of details atleast from then!
The negatives
The descriptive style at times hurts. At a few places, one
would be eagerly waiting for the description of the characters and of the surroundings
to end and the narration to begin. The second negative thing is the unevenness with
which historical facts have been blended into the story in the form of conversations
between the characters. While one expects to see them in a historical thriller,
the second half, especially the ending is overcrowded with them. And finally,
at two places the names of characters have been erroneously printed. One would
definitely read the last few pages over and over again searching for details he
or she would have overlooked, given the unexpected twist of events,
particularly that of Praia’s.
Conclusion
Ashwin Sanghi needs to be appreciated for the intense research
done which is clearly visible in the final product and the book is a must read
for all with the exception of those few unending pages, which would be of no interest
to the ones who were backbenchers in the history classes at school.
1 comment:
This is the best book by Ashwin, compared to the all three books. Nice way of narration, together with Mahabharata story in line. I like the way Ashwin gave us his imagination about the Krishna. The facts in the books looks quite real. At last a nice book for the people who want to know about Krishna.
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