Book Review: 'A Flawed God' by Arjun Shekhar

Very recently, a Hindi movie ‘Aarakshan’ premiered on Indian television, and I happened to watch it. Much hyped because it was about a popularly debated issue of reservation for socially backward castes in educational institutions, it failed to make a mark. The primary reason – it converted a systemic issue into something that concerned only one institution, and then, didn’t even present the solution for it.

‘A Flawed God’ by Arjun Shekhar suffers from the same drawback.

The narrative, written in first person, takes us through a thrilling ride where the protagonist (Sanchit Mishra, an HR executive) goes to alien places, plays unknown games to become a member of a strange, secret organization, and tries to apply what he learnt there in his own company, while it faces a roller-coaster ride of its own. Of course, the journey also includes things he has never done in his life, like getting laid. However, the story goes through abrupt twists, and comes to an abrupt end, leaving the reader wondering about a lot of issues.

Unlike a Dan Brown novel, the story had no gory murders, and just one cryptic clue to solve, after which we are inside the secret organization. Oh, by the way, the organization is not really very secretive, so it has a website and it publishes a journal too.

Saying anything more would reveal the complete plot, so I would refrain from that. Let me try to share my disappointment without giving the mystery away.

1) The constant shift between story-writing and diary-writing

Throughout the story, the author keeps jumping between detailing to the extreme (which makes us feel the story is happening right now and we are a part of it) and summarizing the incident in big sweeps (which feels like reading someone’s diary entry describing his first date in just 3 sentences). This leads to knee-jerk endings of potentially big emotional situations and revelations.

2) Limited character building:

As the story progresses, we don’t really feel that we are getting to know the characters a little better. There are very few back-stories, and very few aspects of each character get built as we go along. This made me feel of the characters more as stereotypes, rather than humans.

3) Excessive repetition of the ‘point’ of the story:

The back page already informs us of the case that the author wants to present – pass on the ownership from ROI-focussed shareholders to the dedicated and passionate employees of the company. The same concept gets explained roughly 4 times through the story, creating excessive hype and pushing the reader to the edge to see its implementation in real life.

4) Presenting a not-so-new-or-radical solution to a pressing systemic problem

Even before we start reading this story, we know that the problem is pressing, and we are willing to take our chances with any structure or system that seems like a solution to this problem. The story, unfortunately, doesn’t propose one.

It presents known practices (like the Japanese style of participative management) with new jargon and a somewhat larger scope.

More disappointingly, the solution of ownership transfer from shareholders to employees is presented for just one company and that too with limited application. The company does put a seemingly new system in place, but then, there are no ‘case studies’ where we see the system in action.

Most disappointingly, the solution is not exactly an alternative to the existing system. It is more of an alternative style of management within the existing system.

5) Overlapping of the problem with unrelated others

The plot overlaps the problem of owners versus employees, with typical problems of labour union politics, and even outsiders (politicians of the town) getting involved in company affairs. Granted, these are real issues which affect a company’s operations and create bigger divides between a company’s management and its workers. But are they really so closely connected to the original problem of shareholders versus employees? I am not so clear on that.

Summary:

Fun read, nice plot, but unrelatable and not as path-breaking as it claims.

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The Murder

With a bag in one hand, and a tray in another, a man walks to one table in the corner of the café. He puts the bag next to his chair, the tray on the table, and settles down. He’s quite relaxed.

What we now hear is all him thinking, hence, as voiceover.

Chalo good. First assignment within 3 months of getting the private detective licence. Not bad. Now I just need to figure out a way to charge more. Then, within a year, I should be able to pay back that bastard all his money.

Anyway, all that later. Let’s focus on this case.

He picks up a briefing document with some highlights here and there. So, a murder has happened in a fine dining restaurant of the 5-Star hotel, The Zodiac. Nice. I will have to go there and check it out. Fine dining restaurants kaise hote hai pata bhi nahi. But anyway, it was in a restaurant.

Next page. And the victim is Mr. Naresh Shetty, famous businessman-turned-politician.

Next page. And we also know that this hotel is the front end of a mafia don. Very high chances that it is his work, but it could very well be that don’s competitor. Or it could be somebody else altogether.

List of the victim’s business operations, and his other activities. These guys could have a lot of internal issues that could have led to a revenge of some kind.

No, this is not going anywhere. My suspect list is going to be long. I need a new starting point.

He takes a sip of the coffee. Eeeek! Too bitter.

“Excuse me, could I have some sugar please?”

A waiter hurries to him with a tray. He keeps a dish on his table, then fumbles, and drops the sugar sachets outside the dish, on the table itself.

“Sorry sir.”

Why did he fumble? I am not even in a hurry. Hey! What if the staff of the restaurant was involved in the murder? What if it is a detailed, planned setup? A murder so perfectly carried out would need a lot of planning. Hmm, let’s see.

A bite from the muffin.

He looks around. Let’s assume this is where the murder happened. What could have happened before it? How would people have communicated to each other without the victim being suspicious? Can the bitter coffee or sugar sachets be any code?

We see the man at the counter. He is just observing people around. He notices this person and nods to him. What if the hotel manager is involved? Maybe his nod means something. Does he behave in the exact same way with all customers?

He observes other staff around. What if the shooter was given a hidden message by someone who interrupted him?

We see a guy cleaning the floor. What about a waiter? Or someone else. Could he have said or done something?

Maybe someone from the kitchen. We see the girl operating the coffee machine. A little bit of different taste could mean something.

We see the cup of coffee. Or even a strand of hair in the food. It can be used to attract the person.

We span the café with other people enjoying their coffee. What if it is not the hotel-owner-cum-gangster who killed this guy? There can be other people using the place, right?

We skip from a couple at one table, to a family of 3 at another table, to 2 businessmen at the third one, and an old man sitting alone at the fourth. What if some people came in as customers? They would look very casual. We don’t notice much about other people in a restaurant. They could make a lot of gestures and actions.

God! So many motives, so many possibilities.

He realizes that the coffee and muffin is over. This is going to be a tough case to crack.

He notices a menu on the table next to his. He picks it up, and scans through the top page. Anybody can be a suspect in a murder case.

We see different items and their prices. Rich people have so much money! With poorer people all around them, they would have so many enemies. And still everyone wants to become rich!

He smiles at the irony and opens the menu to the first fold. It has a note that shows lots of circles, and one marked X.

“Excuse me, sir.”

By the time he looks up to see the waiter, the waiter has snatched away the menu, and the note inside it.

“Sorry sir, that’s a faulty menu. We have made some changes, and this one is not updated. I will get you another one.”

Now that’s weird! Why would you have a note to point out the faul…

His memory flashes back to the note. That layout of the circles seems similar to the tables here.

He notices the ‘reserved’ sign on the next table. And the one marked X is that table over th…

He looks around; sees some staff and people at a couple of tables observing him from the corner of their eyes. He thinks of something, and starts packing his stuff up.

He bends down to open his briefcase. As he does it, he holds the metal latch of the briefcase and tilts to see the table next to him – the one marked X – and sees a gun taped to its bottom.

Holy shit! There is a murder about to happen right here.

---

This was the 4th story I wrote for an office contest.

The other three are here:

The Proposal

The Dilemma

Life in the fast lane

Life in the fast lane

We follow a guy entering a café with a briefcase. He almost slips at the entrance, shows an angry look at the guy cleaning the floor, and curses mutedly.

He looks around desperately, and notices quite a lot of crowd. In one corner of the café, he spots an empty table. He hurries to the table, puts his bag there and hurries back to the counter.

From his point of view, we see the counter getting closer and closer. We also see a man with his back towards us. Just then, the man turns around saying ‘thank you’.

The man is carrying a tray with coffee and snacks, and he bangs into our guy, spilling coffee all over his shirt.

“What the hell! @#$%^ Watch where you are going yaar.”

While the guy is apologizing continuously, the man curses him further. He inspects the stain once again and rushes to the restroom to clean up. While he is still wiping the stain with a wet tissue, his phone rings.

He looks at the screen, “F**k”, and answers, “Hello sir. Haan sir. Nahi sir. Woh mera lunch baaki tha sir, toh yahan ek café mein… nahi sir late nahi hoga, bas fatafat… haan sir, pakka sir… No sir, I won’t keep anyone waiting. Ok sir, bye, sir.”

Some more cursing.

Finally, it looks ok. He comes out of the restroom and rushes towards the counter. We see a girl politely offering him the menu, but he brushes it aside.

“Nahi, yeh jaane do. Ek coffee de do… aur khaane mein kya hai?” He looks at all the items displayed, and points out to a sandwich. “Woh sandwich veg hai? Ek de do. Nahi garam mat karo, aise hi de do. Nahi ketchup nahi chahiye.”

We see him constantly tapping his foot and fidgeting with his phone, looking at the time, while the girl goes to the coffee machines, and makes his coffee.

He collects the sandwich and coffee in a tray and walks towards his table.

Once there, he gobbles down the sandwich, and takes a few sips from his coffee. He again looks at his watch, and realizes he doesn’t have enough time.

“Oh shit.”

He decides to finish his coffee on the way, collects all his stuff, and walks towards the door.

He has almost exited the café, when he realizes that he has not paid for the food. He runs to the counter and says, “O suno, paise dene baaki hai. Bill de do, please. Kitna hua?”

The girl at the counter, confirms something on her screen and smiles back.

“No sir, you don’t have to pay anything.”

“Huh!?!”

“Yes sir, your food was free. In fact, we will have to pay you something.” The girl says, with a wide grin on her face.

While our man gets confused as to what’s going on, she pauses to enjoy the moment.

She speaks up after a moment. “We are celebrating our first year anniversary this week, sir. And you are our 1000th customer in this week. Because of this, you win a cash prize of Rs. 2 lakh. Congratulations, sir. Please wait a few minutes here. I will just call the manager.”

The man stands there, frozen. It takes a moment for it to sink in. And then he breaks into a big, joyous smile.

He takes a deep breath and looks around. He notices the man who had spilt coffee over him, seated at a table nearby. The man notices him too, and mouths a ‘sorry’, but our guy couldn't be angry about anything anymore. He replies with a gesture conveying, ‘That’s ok. No problem.’

A few minutes later, he steps out of the café, and notices that it is raining. He spreads his arms, and steps into the rain with his face up towards the sky.

---

This story is the 3rd of 4 stories I wrote for a contest in my office.

The previous ones: 'The Proposal' and 'The Dilemma'.