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Literary Review
Thriller
Dramatic day
ZIYA US SALAM
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Dead on Time is a fast-paced novel set in the murky world of British politics.
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There is enough drama but no melodrama. Everything is reined in.
Dead on Time, Meghnad Desai, HarperCollins, Rs. 399
A renowned economist. A member of the House of Lords. Yet a couple of summers ago, he surprised everybody, except may be himself, by coming up with a book on Dilip Kumar, the matinee idol he grew up admiring. In a rigidly segmented world, academics a
nd films do not often meet; one is cerebral, the other provides mundane fare for popular, baser instincts. So, going by easy stereotypes, nobody would have expected an economist to dabble in the saccharine world of Bollywood. Yet, Lord Meghnad Desai did just that; and even managed to give a neat juxtaposition of the roles the tragedy king played with Nehruvian socialism of 1950s.
Now, just when everybody thought his next book might be on yet another Bollywood personality, Desai springs a surprise! And lo, he makes his debut as a novelist at age 68! No, he does not talk of Marx and Weber. Or even moan the death of the State in a world of free enterprise. Nor does he take us into the world of romance, a feeling that is dead in today’s world, as he himself admits! The economist and the poet go on a vacation. Instead, he culls together his experience of British politics from close quarters to come up with a political thriller that borrows so richly from real life that it is so easily identifiable, and so very tempting to place alongside the rich and famous of our times.
Enough drama
Set in British politics, Dead on Time is a little reflection of some of the action on the global stage: it has action, it has Machiavellian sharks in political attire, it has a Chanakyan secretary to the British PM besides two men who remind us so helpfully of the Gordon Brown-Tony Blair rivalry. Of course, there is the lesbian angle thrown in and a bit of paedophile too! And there is a little aside in the form of a popular joke, “when the U.S. itches, the U.K. scratches”! Phew! Desai has seriously packed in more characters in one novel than any Bollywood multi-starrer could ever aspire to. And considering all the drama takes place in one day with the ticking clock marking the unfolding murder plots, Desai could shame our dream merchants. In comparison to this thriller on the goings-on at 10, Downing Street, the best of Ramgopal Varma and company is vapid! There is masala in every other paragraph and hardly any life is without hidden skeletons in the cupboard.
Deeper layers
Come on, our dream merchants better buck up! Yet there is a layering to the novel that is not so easily attainable except for the very talented and the very persevering. Desai is both. So even in a racy thriller with action, he manages to add slices of personal life, of understated emotion so becoming of the caring. It comes across so fetchingly in the little conversation between media baron Matt Drummond and his wife, Margaret. The extract “9.45 p.m. London/The Ritz” says, “They had just been served the dessert. Matt Drummond…had another call from Glasgow….this time it was his wife. Did he want to take it? Matt knew that Margaret would not call him for any trivial reason. Something must have happened… ‘Hello, Margaret’, he said. ‘Sorry to get you like this, Matt. I just wanted to say. If you hear about my car accident, it’s nothing serious. I am bruised, and must use a wheelchair for a couple of days, that’s all.”
Yes, there is enough drama but no melodrama. Everything is reined in. The emotion comes to the other, but they don’t overwhelm either Matt or the reader. Much like the rest of this book. This piece of fiction here could have had more depth but then he would have had to compromise on the pace. And that would have been sinful in a thriller. Yet his army of vengeful, colourful characters, each with a secret to hide, and another to share, makes for an interesting cocktail. Not a great piece of literature, Dead on Time is a book to read, a book to enjoy. And a taut work to know your world better.
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