Title: 03:02
Author: Mainak Dhar
Publisher: Westland Publishers
Review:
While reading Mainak Dhar’s novel
03:02, I was reminded of the television series, Revolution. The series is set
in a post-apocalyptic near-future, in the year
2027. Fifteen years earlier, in the year 2012, a worldwide event known as
"The Blackout" caused all electricity on Earth, ranging from
computers and electronics to car and jet engines, to be disabled permanently.
As a result, trains and cars stopped where they were, ships went dead in the
water, and aircraft plummeted from the sky and crashed. In the years after the
Blackout, people adapted to this new world without electricity. Because
government and public order collapsed, several areas are ruled by militias and
their generals. Quite similar is Dhar’s setting. While in Revolution the
blackout was a global phenomenon, in 03:02, the locale is restricted to Mumbai.
The author does mention that other places have also been impacted, but it is
basically India’s economic capital that he chooses to highlight.
What sets Dhar’s novel apart from
the series is the cause behind the blackout. 03:02 builds off something that is
very topical — the threat of terror. In this novel, terror is not something
ordinary Indians watch the news or read about on the internet, but something
they must confront firsthand. It talks of an attack wherein a deadly threat
sweeps through our homeland, threatening our freedom and way of life. With no
army or police to help them, ordinary Indians must band together to face this
threat and wage a war for our freedom.
Thus far the story held the promise
of a big, bold, and brassy adventure and would have certainly been the best
read for me. Unfortunately, the storyline all of a sudden takes a dive. Dhar perhaps
becomes so enamoured by his protagonist Aadi that instead of paying attention
to the story at large, he becomes busy in sketching a larger-than-life
character for the hero. When characters take precedence over the story, it is
the reader who suffers eventually. What could have been a brilliantly crafted
page turner otherwise stays just an above average reading.
What has not been compromised with
is the narrative skill that Dhar is known to hide up his sleeves. As usual, his
writing style is a neat package with no nonsense showery. He delivers some
consistently terrific action scenes that I’ve come to associate with his
storytelling (I read another book by the same author and enjoyed it). The crisp
writing makes for a pleasant read.
Whether willingly or unwittingly, almost
every story has a message to deliver and that message becomes the central idea
that marches the narrative onward and ahead. The spark lies within each of us — this is the driving point of
Mainak Dhar’s latest release, 03:02, which happens to be a post-apocalyptic
novel.
If you haven’t read the book, go
get a copy. Read it if not for anything else but for the novelty (at least in
the Indian literary market) of the idea behind the book.
About the Author:
After finishing his schooling at Modern School, Barakhamba Road and his under-graduation at Hindu College, Delhi, Mainak Dhar graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He has spent two decades in the corporate sector starting with Procter & Gamble in India. He spent eighteen years with P&G, fifteen of them outside India across the Asia Pacific region. In 2014, he moved back to India as the CEO of the India operations of a major consumer products multinational. A self-described cubicle dweller by day and writer by night, Mainak is also the author of over a dozen books, some of which have been bestsellers in India and abroad. These books have been translated into Turkish, Vietnamese, Japanese, French, German and Portuguese. He lives in Mumbai with his wife, Puja and their son, Aaditya. When not at work or with his family, he can usually be found working on or thinking about his next book.
Buy Link:
* I received a review copy
from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
** Picture courtesy:
Amazon.in
