Book Review : ‘Lal Salaam’ a novel authored by Smriti Zubin Irani
Book Review : ‘Lal Salaam’ a novel by Smriti Zubin Irani
About the Book
Inspired by the unfortunate killings of seventy-six CRPF personnel in Dantewada in April 2010, Lal Salaam seeks to humanise the daily conflicts and ethical dilemmas that confront people in the poorest and most troubled regions of our country. It is also a story of the brave men who serve the law even when the law fails to serve them.
SP Vikram Singh’s arrival in the dusty little village of Ambuja, in Chhattisgarh, instantly establishes him as a man to watch out for. Over the next few weeks, as he attempts to bring order to a long-neglected police station and motivate his less-than-enthusiastic crew, Vikram can feel those eyes everywhere, following his every move, watching and waiting for the first misstep. At stake for him is the truth behind the vengeful killing of his old friend and fellow officer, Darshan—and the very idea of justice. Vikram knows he cannot rest until he solves the case, but every day there is a new challenge: a local businessman with vested interests in both bureaucracy and Naxalism, an influential academic in Delhi at whose doorstep the trail runs cold, a young widow and her journalist friend, who quickly take centre stage in his vexed new life.
Smriti Zubin Irani is an Indian politician, a former TV actress and producer. She represents the constituency of Amethi in the Lok Sabha, to which she was elected in 2019. She is currently the Union Minister for Women and Child Development. She has also served as the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Minister for Textiles.
This is her debut novel.
Book Review :
“Lal Salaam”, Authored by Smt Smriti Zubin Irani, is a good to read book. Simple narration, gripping events, and fast pace are the entrails of this two fifty page book. Starts with tense action and ends with a gripping event. The author never lets the reader relax or skip pages in the course of unraveling the people and the reason for the brutal killings.
The specialty of the book is, that it managed with a very few women characters and the story never digressed from the main theme of a few murders and the investigation. The novel certainly is a reflection of current social ways of living, political ways of business deals, and the shallowness of ideological movements like Naxalism.
The only inconceivable point in the storytelling is the long lecture by the character to give out the most critical clues, holding a pistol to the head of the victim.
In the novel the event to event narration by the protagonist, SP Vikram Pratap Singh is very convincing and human. He would be posted to Ambuja, an area infested by the Moist movement, to investigate the murder of his colleague friend, Darshan. Darshan was brutally killed in an ambush by Naxals. SP would nurture a personal vendetta for the killers of his close friend Darshan and would start his investigation.
SP would start brisk work after taking a few assistants like Gayaram and Keshav from the department. Very early he would make the required breakthroughs into the total network operating in that border village Ambuja. He would get connected to people like Devika, a reporter, and Sethi a contractor with high connections. Sethi had a daughter, Anjli a friend of Devika. Dhruva, husband of Anjali would be a victim of Maoists.
SP and team would succeed in arresting good leads in the mystery twice. But on both occasions, they would fail by their indiscreet actions with the culprits. Then the story would move fast with the murders of almost all the characters which were introduced in the earlier part.
SP would come under pressure from his superiors for the delay and spate of killings. Resolute SP and team would act firm and bold to bring to the surface the nexus between the Maoist groups and high profile people. They would finally succeed to catch the culprit in the act of committing killing and killer justified that as a revenge killing. This character would be completely new to the story at that point. His name was Kranti.
The last few pages were given to Kranti, to give an elaborate story of all those people, who were killed. A this point Kranti take away all the sympathies of the readers despite his being a hard core murderer.
The author made sure that the interest of the reader is kept to the last page and last sentence. Wish to read more from the author.
Reviewed by Vallinath Mangalampalli
Book Details:
- Publisher : Westland (29 November 2021)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9391234631
- ISBN-13 : 978-9391234638
- Item Weight : 231 g
- Dimensions : 14 x 2.5 x 21 cm
- Country of Origin : India
