Book Review #91: Johnny Gone Down By Karan Bajaj

Title: Johnny Gone Down 
Author: Karan Bajaj
Publishers: Harper Collins India
Genre: General Fiction/Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 324
Source: Personal Copy

Rarely few books keeps us engaged from page 1 till the end. Especially with the new age Indian authors, who write mostly the college romance, marriage and such similar stuff? This has become a mundane affair to see every tom, dick and harry who claim themselves as authors and writers. There is no fresh perspective whatsoever with it. 

Johnny Gone Down, by the author Karan Bajaj is nothing of that college romance as such. Though it has its fair share of college story but, it’s just at the beginning and the novel takes an entirely different route. I liked this novel. It has all those elements that a reader expects. If I may say so, it has more than what one would expect from a relatively new author.

The plot of the novel seems quite unusual from the page 1 itself. We see the protagonist in a gun duel bet, where he can lose his life in any moment. At the pull of each trigger, the protagonist imagines what transpired his life to this end. He imagines his happy days, his sorrowful days. His other opponent, a cancer patient, who is in a need of money to perform his daughter’s wedding is ready to give away his life in a snap. This gun duel is quite impressive as it helps the story to move forward. 

The readers will be in a strange quest before even starting with the initial few pages. As the title by itself is more intriguing. Why the hell this book is named Johnny and why he has gone down? The readers begins with this question in their mind. The protagonist of the novel is Nikhil Arya or Nick. Born to a wealthy NRI parents who moved out of India to settle in America. He lost both of his parents while he was young. As charming and studious as he is, expectedly Nick gets his ticket to MIT, Boston. 

Well, the story does start from his last examination day. He and his friend Sam begins their unplanned trip to Cambodia. But what awaits at Cambodia is a surprising factor. The country that is torn by the rebels uprising had made it worse for the civilians. Expectedly, the protagonist does gets stuck in Cambodia, but the fate had other plans. While Nick rescues Sam by showing his passport as his friends. And, he gets caught by the rebels and story takes it first major turn.

As one reads through the pages, more or less, the story goes on in a predictable mode. The readers could guess what might happen. The protagonist was captured and made to rot in closed jail for about two years. By somehow, he escapes from there and finds himself in a monastery in Thailand. 

In Thailand, our protagonist Nick, thought of staying for a long duration than he was anticipated initially. He learns meditation, he becomes a teacher and a monk as well. The quest continues further as we read through. Nick, now travels to Brazil to set up their meditation school. There he finds a different life altogether and he ends up being a drug lord and money launderer. He meets Marco, a drug lord, who happened to get saved by our protagonist Nick. There is a special love track in this part of the novel that might shape the future of our protagonist.

As the book progresses in each page, we feel a sense of urgency to see what is in store for Nick. From Brazil, his journey takes him back to USA. There he is homeless, cashless and even identity less. The writers can actually construct the most unbelievable events that makes no sense in real life, but still, in this novel, like any regular novel, the unthinkable happens. At the age of nearly 40, the protagonist Nick learns to code and builds an alternate virtual life game. Now here is the overdone part in this novel. How much ever the readers tries to comprehend the luck factor of Nick, it doesn’t become a convincing factor. He finds himself in the most horrid situations, but he has this extraordinary luck factor, that binds his fate in safe hands.

So, as the novel inches in for climax, we feel a sense of relief that, something good will happen to this Nick or let him die peacefully at least. Quite expectedly, he meets his childhood friend Sam, now a big tycoon of media industry. They meet and greet each other and share their whole bunch of successes, failures and stuff, like a reunion. There, our protagonist, changes his name from Nick to Johnny for a better future, but decides against it and let the JOHNNY GO DOWN!!

Overall, a good attempt with the contemporary style fiction. The story is quite unthinkable. Readers should come to terms with many events in the novel, because it happens only in fiction world. Language is simple and lucid. Can be read within few hours. Not highly recommending stuff, but yeah, you can give this book a shot. Worth it.

My Rating:
3/5

Book Review #42: Nirakarana By Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa

This is a short book that captures the rollercoaster ride of a man that stuck between family life and renunciation. Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa has marveled once again in this book. He has gone inside a man’s mind and written this novel as if he is narrating the story of that man’s life. “Nirakarana” can be translated to English as “Denial”.

The story seems to be very simple at the beginning. The protagonist of the novel, Narahari a moderately educated man, married twice, but both of his wives are dead long ago. Along with 5 kids from 2 wives, Narahari seems to have lost the capability to lead his life. He was struggling every day to take care of his kids with his low paying and overworking job. He is a stenographer in the leading English daily in the town.

So, he decides to give away his kids for adoption. He publishes an ad in his newspaper with the help of his editor. He decides to give away his kids for adoption for well settled families. He also decides that, he gives each kid to a different family. At times, he felt that he is doing something wrong. But, he gets this strong feel of guilt whenever he looked at his kids. He is not able to provide them the proper childhood that they've rightfully owned. Therefore, he decides not to waste a minute or two. Within 6 months of his publishing ad, he was approached by various families from different cities across the country. Within 1 year, he gave away all his kids for adoption to different families.

What follows later is a true mastery of art work by the author. Having got ridden of his kids, he decides to renounce his working life and decides to become a hermit. He informs his editor about his decision and leaves his city forever. Initially he wanders around many holy places and meets many sages and saints. He somehow started to like his way of learning the life and its oddities. He starts to learn meditation, at the same time he decides to go to the Himalayas. There, he meets a sage who wore nothing, spoke nothing and ate nothing but a potato for a day. He was attracted initially in this way of renouncing the world. He tries to follow in the footsteps of this sage, but he failed miserably to cope up with the hard way. He was no longer able to continue living life that way. He decides to head back to the city and seeks a warden job in a local orphanage. There he befriends the accountant of that orphanage and narrates his whole life with him.

As the story further progresses, this accountant friend of Narahari informs him that he will go and see the conditions of kids that Narahari had gave away. Once this accountant was back, Narahari learnt that, his kids are not leading a happy life after all, except for 2 kids. Surprisingly, this accountant had brought a kid along with himself and informs Narahari that, this kid is his son. He had brought this kid only to save kid’s miserable life in the adopted house. Initially, Narahari was not happy to see his kid coming back to him. Later, he starts to get a liking for this boy.

As the story approached towards the end, a young girl would come to this orphanage and with an instant she identifies Narahari as her father. What follows after their long discussions gives a complete picture of the novel. I stop it at this point; this much would be enough for a review!!

What I liked about the novel is its immense detailed presentation of the renounced life of Narahari. It is just not about Narahari, this story reminds us of the hard times that may come up life and how one should approach it instead of renouncing and get rid of our responsibilities. Difficulties, hardships are all part of life. One should not get dejected by it; rather, one should face it with more energy and try to bring out the solution. There’s always a silver lining in everyone’s life. 

My Rating:
4/5