DEATH OF
A MONEYLENDER
BY KOTA NEELIMA
I
picked this book up from Western Book Store, Sadar, Nagpur, as I was strolling the market; just missed the
Author who had visited the same store… a deep regret for me! Coming to the
book, this is a book of rare skill, a book that defies description as it
successfully blends two diametrically different genres into one composite
whole. It is also a book, with some detailing and alteration, that can become an excellent
non-fiction work as well, and that is its true strength. This is the third book
by the current author I have read, and it has to be said that each work has
been different from the others, each has been really good, which speaks volumes
for the versatility of the author.
THE
CHARACTERS
Falak
: Journalist, clear headed in his
ideology and approach towards his job and his vocation. Also highly confused
about his his ideology and approach towards his job and his vocation… yup, both
in the same person at the same time!
Vani
: 1/Falak; Inversely Proportional to
Falak, Falak * -1; The Opposite of Falak. And yes, She loves, and she doesn’t
love him, both at the same time. Go figure!
Bhanu
: Don’t jump to conclusions. Please
don’t.
THE
PLOT
The
plot revolves around the death of a moneylender in a remote village; the only
problem was that this particular character was quite well loved in more ways
than one. A genuinely gentle man with a
helpful attitude, and a propensity of forgiving loads or readjusting payment
schedules, he wasn’t one of your rural toughs who arm twist people and charge
immense interest rates. To further
complicate matters, he was a highly educated man in agriculture,
educated in the sense that he would try out the best and latest techniques,
methods, and be a guide to villagers. Not the kind of man that would fall prey
to a set of vengeful villagers, which is what this village was – angry. Who
killed him – and why? Why was this
genteel guide and friend of the village murdered, apparently by a mob?
As
an undercurrent to the main story, and beautifully intertwined with it, is a
superb secondary line of thought : two journalists with divergent approaches;
one who believes the end justifies the means, and reportage is primarily editor
and organization driven rather than content and reality driven – while the
other having diametrically different approach, that of due diligence,
authoritative research, hard legwork, focus on the facts and the truth; and a
commitment to bringing the reality to the fore. Both these stories superbly
connect at a series of points in the book as well as provide food for thought
THE
REVIEW
This
is a thought-provoking book; in fact, so powerful is the presented narrative
that I would like to ask the Author to –
whenever she feels she has enough data regarding these affairs, and latitude in
her day job, to present a non-fiction work along these lines, presenting the
reality of the on-ground situation. Admittedly, that would be a tough ask, and
is bound to take time as well as solid
research and carefully worded and phrased content, given the topic. I hope she
does do it; I would certainly like to
read it.
It
takes you deep into village life, and particularly the village and farming
economy – not on a paper-level, or on an analytical level; but on a
gut-wrenching hard-hitting level of the individual farmer, as well as the
socio-cultural mileu and environment of a village. Even I, who have identified
farming credit as one of the key contributory factors of the farming scenario
in India in my Agriculture Series, was hit hard at this personal approach,
despite being reasonably familiar with the reality. The difference is that
while my understanding is basis reading a series of research papers, I get the
feeling this book has a lot of personal experience behind it, and it shows.
{For the layman : for a basic understanding, please read this article in my series, which lists the main issues and gives a small commentary regarding the same}
A
this point, a word about the one point in this book that struck me the most –
the writing style {I could be wrong, of course}, seemed at variance with the
previous work {Her latest – The Honest Season}; the words, phrases and style
was almost like a moving video; you would draw images in your mind as your
reading progressed. As suits this style, the charectarisation has been kept
strictly minimal; and the entire focus was on the content and the story.
The
story is very fast; in fact, surprisingly fast for this genre and this deep and
frankly slightly darkish content. This is a book that you will read in one
sitting, and enjoy it immensely too. There are precisely zero needless detours
despite their being an excellent opportunity for a detour into a love angle.
This temptation has been thankfully avoided, and the focus kept on the story in
what praiseworthy and commendable focus – also adding a lovely spice of
suspense to the story…
The
story has been adroitly handled, and presented in a manner that heightens your
interest, invoking reading passion into the subject; this keeps the reader
riveted. The straightforward story of a moneylender bends somewhat when it
emerges that this guy was a very well loved man indeed; but then why are the
villagers so clearly angry? Even more pertinent, why has he killed? Read the
book to find out more; all I say is that this is one of the finest works of
fiction I have read, and rate it 5 stars!
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