I was generally browsing crime
fiction books on online bookstores and getting intimidated by the prices,
especially while simultaneously imagining how less it could cost if I could get
them in Abids...then I came across this book called Mumbaistan...for
starters, the price was not intimidating on Infibeam...and they were giving a
generous discount on MRP...and that motivated me click on more details...
I liked the title and the cover...the description on the site didn’t say much,
but whatever it was, it sounded promising...then I read that the author Piyush
Jha had earlier made films too... I had particularly liked his film King
of Bollywood with Om Puri in the lead (I haven’t watched his other
films)...that kind of warmed me to the author...a kind of confidence that he
wouldn’t disappoint ... the book bio on the site said that the book is a
collection of three crime thrillers set in Mumbai...all these prompted me to
click buy...
At the bottom of the page I
noticed another book by the same author ...Compass Box Killer...khatarnaak
title re bhai...and it said An Inspector Virkar Crime Thriller...the
cover was splashed in yellow and blood red and tempting... the title again
intrigued me – Compass Box Killer? I think school students still call the box of
mathematical instruments the compass box (though it also held the
protractor, setsquare, ruler, apart from the ‘compass’) ...can’t say...anyway,
we used to call it the compass box...a killer with a compass box? hmmmm... not bad...hit the buy
button...
Waited for four days or so to
receive both books... I started with Mumbaistan immediately...it
has three stories...Bomb Day, Injectionwala, and Coma Man...lovely
spicy titles... I finished the book in three sittings...one for each story...
absolutely loved Bomb Day...without revealing what happens there, I
would like to say here that Piyush Jha takes us on a fast and bumpy ride into
the seamy and shady Mumbai where cops and criminals, informers and dealers,
pimps and prostitutes play hide and seek in such out-of-this-world seedy
locations like A-1 Air Cooled Hair Cutting Centre, Dr Chitlekar’s Lie-in
Clinic, Falkland Road, Chitra Basaar, Friendship Lodge, Sultan-e-Hind
Restaurant, Sewree Christian Cemetry, the hole-in-the-wall teashop...Piyush Jha
takes the action to such a level that you do not know who is who...who could
turn out to be what...and characters like ACP Hani, Tanvir, Rabia, Aalamzeb,
the ATS police...reading the goings on is thrilling no doubt, but you are also
made aware of the lurking danger at every turning, every minute...the enormous
risk and sacrifices being made by the police to protect Mumbai and its
people...without them knowing what is happening in these back
alleys...absolutely fantastic...I liked it immensely... I could breathe
normally only after I finished Bomb Day...
After the high octane ride in Bomb
Day, the pace slows down in Injectionwala...the turmoil happens
inside the characters in this story... and results in crimes of
retribution...less of a cops and terrorists story like Bomb Day...more
of a detective and killer story... and here were are introduced to Inspector
Virkar... passionate about his work, tenacious investigator, physically fit, toyed
with the idea of joining a neighbourhood gang in his youth, comes from a lowly
background, rises up through hard-work, has spats with superiors, past
humiliations keep haunting him, rides his Bullet motorbike, has his favourite
beer...all boxes ticked... despite all his problems, Virkar is a cop with a
conscience, like most fictional detectives...
Injectionwala is a different kind of crime
thriller from Bomb Day, but no less intriguing and suspenseful and
Piyush Jha keeps the action going smoothly with brief side stories about his
main characters...as I wrote earlier, the pace is considerably slower, as it is
mostly in detective stories...and when it comes to an inspector in the police
department, then contending with hierarchy and dealing with bureaucracy takes
up a lot of space (pages in the book) and time (of the inspector
detective)...and on top of that if the inspector himself is a troubled person,
then some more space goes into describing his problems... but on the whole the
story is interesting and constructed well...and each killing reveals a new fact
and slowly and painstakingly all these are pieced together to reveal the
killer...and of course, the killer has a reason for all these killings...and of
course, you have Inspector Virkar, the cop with a conscience...deciding how to close
and present the case...
Coma Man is a complete contrast to the
first two stories...it is one man’s search for truth and love...no detectives
or inspectors here...a man rising up from coma after almost 20 years to go in
search of his wife and to find out why he went into coma 20 years ago...again
here, we get a ringside view of the other Mumbai as the Coma Man stumbles through
slums and gets in and out of buses and clutches of local gangsters... though
there is suspense almost till the end, the intensity in the earlier two stories
is missing...I tried to find out why, but couldn’t put my finger on it...
After Mumbaistan, I started Compass
Box Killer...and here Piyush Jha gives a whole book to Inspector
Virkar...I hope Piyush Jha continues to write and give us a series of Inspector
Virkar books...
And is Compass Box Killer interesting? Well...well...I hope to write about it
too...
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