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 #25: Tantu By Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa

Yet again, I am here to give you all a review of Dr. S. L. Bhyrappa Sir's another magnificent novel Tantu. Tantu can be meant as "Links" or a much sophisticated close meaning as "Relations". This book reveals the various facets of a life and how the bad decisions can affect one's own life and their surroundings. I can say, this book is more or less similar to Anchu in terms of the characters, feelings and relationships are concerned. But still, it makes altogether a different impact on its readers. Much have been talked about the capabilities of Dr. SLB sir and his magic while creating a psychological view of every character.

Tantu is a journey of individual souls that judge things from their own perspective. The protagonists are mere mirror image of a modern society. The reality is, Tantu captures the minute details of a person that you and me see in everyday of our life. This book is a fight between, honesty, bravery, cunningness, illicit relations, upbringing kids in the right way, money, meditation, music, school, government, politics, politicians, journalism, etc, etc..

Spread across 900 pages. This book captures many stories that are interlinked with each other. Author had brilliantly connected each story to the next and previous one in order to achieve the full effect. A complete package of a typical Indian life in a typical India during the time of Indira (the then prime minister of India)!!!.

There is no single protagnonist in this novel. Each character has the same depth of a protagonist range. A Resident Editor of a popular english daily Mr. Ravindra, who sticks to his principles and known for his honesty and integrity. A shrewed woman, wife of the resident editor, Mrs. Kanti, who is least cared about living the life in a right way, she rather believed in living life in all possible way. And, a teenage son of this couple Anoop, who falls in the wrong companionship of wealthy kids, and starts to steal things from his school, steals money from his dad's pocket. Later stage of the novel witnesses Anoop being convicted by police, when raiding a brothel cum nude dance bar.

The story revolves around these main characters. But, the other events and stages of the novel feels as important as these 3 peoples. As the novel further goes, Mr. Ravindra came to know that, his son is going in a wrong direction. He decides to get him admitted to a different school, that runs on the principles laid down by Mahatma Gandhi. The speciality of this school is, it doesn't take any support from the governmental agencies, even, the teachers are mostly celibate and they stays in school forever. The vivid description of this school must be read from the novel itself. Here author introduces us to the scene, where Mrs. Kanti was not at all happy about getting her son admitted to a school in a faraway village. This event had led her to have a spat with Ravindra.

As the novel further goes, Mrs. Kanti decides to go to her hometown for her father's birthday. But, she decides to stay there forever. Reason being, she meets one of her childhood friend, Mrs. Sheetal, who works in external ministry department. She gives Kanti an idea of starting her own cloth export business, for which, Kanti agreed instantaneously. Later events, proved that Kanti grown as one of the successfull business tycoon.

The real twist in the novel appears now. In Anoop's school there is a music teacher by the name of Mr. Hemanth Honnatti, that left his high paying job and decides to pursue his career in sitar music and runs away from his house and was practising in Anoop's school. Fortunately, Kanti knew the parents of Hemanth, she decides to meet him and persuade him to go and meet his parents. As the events unfolds, Kanti realizes that, she is attracted to Hemanth, she slowly shows her intersts in him, for which, Hemanth reciprocates equally. Within no time, their relationship had grown beyond imagine and they started seeing each other almost daily.

As the novel approaches towards the end. Anoop had joined an engineering college to pursue his engineering. Here author tries to explain the grave realities of the problems of a young adult, who is curious enough to try his hands at relationships, but not adult enough to sustain those realtions. Anoop tries his luck with many female students from his college. He also visits brothels, that leads to him in a bigger mess in the later stage of the novel. Finally, he decides to pursue his career in USA for an administration degree in Business. Here, due to Indira Gandhi's emergency declarations in the country, Ravindra decides to quit his resident editor job as he feels that there is not enough room left for fair, honest practice for journalism. His newspaper investors asked him to not to cover any governmental decisions and to stay out of reporting those things. This was the phase, that whole of India was in ultimate shock by witnessing the dictator style of governance from Indira Gandhi.

In climax, Ravindra will come to know about the illicit relationship that his wife Kanti had with Hemanth. He tries to question her, but he gets admonished from Kanti. Even Anoop knows about her mother's illicit relatioship, for which, his mother tactful response makes him silent. Here Kanti had grown out to be a good successfull business icon, but, failed as a wife and a mother. She had suffered a massive heart attack and passes away in isolation. Ravindra was put behind the bar for writing against the Indira Gandhi's government, Anoop marries his girlfriend and decides to stay in USA. The final scene marks, where Ravindra and few other were shouting slogans against the government for its decision to arrest common people. This marks the end of the book.

As though my review seems to be long and very simple. It's not the case, I didn't even revealed 20% of the novel in my review. It is such a huge novel, and it is difficult to write a conclusive review after all. It exposes those persons that lives in each one of us who are after material desires than relations and responsibilities. As we witness in this novel, Kanti failed as an honest wife and a loving mother. Anoop failed as an honest son, Hmeanth failed as a trusted friend, Ravindra failed for being an honest man!!. Their relationships or TANTU with each other seems to be just on the papers, and it has broken long ago.

We all must appreciate the hidden meaning in this novel. Don't just think it is a work of fiction, it gives all of us some lessons on how to maintain our relationships. If we go behind just material desires, our relationships, for sure, goes in a different direction. We wouldn't even realize it. By the time we realize, this TANTU or RELATIONSHIP will be beyond the stage of repair. A must read for everyone.

My Rating: 
5/5