Fast-paced novel
CHITRAPU UDAY BHASKAR
TARBELA DAMNED — Pakistan Tamed: C.N. Anand; Indialog Publications, O-22, Lajpat Nagar II, New Delhi-110024.
Rs. 195.
It is August 22, 2007 and Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf is addressing his nation after the Tarbela Dam across the mighty River Indus has sustained severe damage thereby threatening vast tracts of the country and its inhabitants. India has offered to assist. “You are aware of the grave crisis Pakistan is facing…you must have heard Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to treat us like brothers…India has not taken advantage but has off
ered us help…I want to explore the possibility of a confederacy between us…I am convinced this is the will of Allah…Pakistan and India Zindabad.” Far fetched? Not for the fertile imagination of an enthusiastic author and in Anand’s rendition of the troubled bilateral relationship, the Tarbela Dam occupies centre-stage.
The plot
In a complex fictional trapeze that involves the Indian external intelligence agency RAW and its Israeli counterpart Mossad, and also some elements of the IRA, this slim volume demonstrates how Pakistan is “tamed”. The central figure is Rahul Sharma, a RAW operative who single-handedly conceives and executes a seemingly incredible plan to sabotage the Tarbela Dam and is assisted by his old school-mate, Solomon Rabban — an Indian Jew who emigrates to Israel and later joins the Mossad. For good measure the Irish are also brought on board and it is a racy tale that moves from Shillong to Chennai to Dublin and Dubai even as it criss-crosses Pakistan — its persecuted minorities and power hungry Generals.
Here is a narrative that is ambitious in scope and seeks to invoke the scale of a James Michener novel as it grapples with complex historical issues and simultaneously introduce an Ian Fleming like pace and tautness when dealing with the shadowy world of intelligence and high stake national security issues. But like the proverbial curate’s egg, the final product is good in parts though the fact that this is the author’s debut makes this an endearing first effort. In his rather brief acknowledgement, he admits that “my first novel came out in a gush” and there is that strain of untrammelled energy about the book. We know little about the author—for there is no standard blurb to give the curious reader appropriate background information — but Anand clearly knows his chosen domain. One presumes there is an autobiographical undercurrent embedded in the storyline but it is the deep asides into civil engineering and the intricacies of building (and damaging) a rock and earth dam that I personally found illuminating.
Critique
But there are too many issues and ideas that keep “gushing” through the book and a more rigorous editor may have accorded the otherwise compelling story greater directivity. From a quick history of Indian civilisation and the humiliation of colonial rule to the Jewish experience and the injustice done to the Irish as also the brutality of the feudal order in Pakistan amongst other strands, the book seeks to traverse too much in too little space. But the author is to be commended for the vitality of this maiden effort and the publisher has done a neat job.
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