RIP- Very Much An Indian Tale

RIP by Mukul Deva

Genre- Action/ Thriller

Pages- 286

Rating- 4/5

RIP was the first book I applied for the review at Blogadda and luckily, their team obliged me by giving me this opportunity. I was looking forward to review it as I have always liked reading fast-paced action books that have loads of strategy in them. And I can easily say that RIP did not disappoint me.

Uncovering it, the first thing that got my attention was the cover. It was definitely attractive and I ended up going through it twice. And it very much tells you the subject of the book. The bullet, the ‘I’ of the RIP symbolizes all the action, violence, strategies, fights and duels. You will certainly have a look at it if you are scrutinizing the book at a stand. It is that good. The back cover goes in the same vein. Glossy, colourful and full of action.

Coming to the theme, honestly speaking, there is nothing new in it. 6 army-men, who call themselves K-team (as their names start with ‘K’) and are the RIP in the story (Resurgent Indian Patriots) are on a mission to eradicate the corrupt and corruption from the system. It does not matter to them whether he/ she is a politician, businessman, bureaucrat or a common man. Nor perturbs them the methods they will be using to get this country rid of them. If it comes to killing and blood shedding; they will, without slightest hesitation.

To stop them on this mission are many people. There is a dishonest politician who is more worried about his life than the national security. CBI chief Vinod Bedi is an honest cop who wants to finish the RIP as soon as possible. And there is Raghav Bhagat (an ex army-man himself) who is hired by the political system to uncover the RIP and finish them by any means.

Among all these are interweaved few parallel stories that lead us into the personal lives of these brave and courageous men that show the emotional side of the characters. This includes K-team leader Krishna’s affection for Reena who is contesting a divorce case from her husband, Raghav Bhagat. The respective sons of Krishna and Reena, Sachin and Azaan play an important part in the development and narration of the story.

As I said earlier, the story is not so new. In the first few pages, the crux of the story unfolds- few men have a self-assigned task on their hand of removing the corrupt and dishonest and others are planning to stop them, by hook or by crook. Where the fun is? It is in the details.

This book is not about WHAT but HOW. I knew the storyline in some 10 pages but how will K-team achieve it made it immensely readable. What makes this book a fascinating read is the way the scenes have been thought upon. The planning of the events and their execution has been meticulously taken care of. Mukul Deva is himself an ex-army man and you can make it out in his way of writing if you pay attention to how deeply he has researched every scenario. Loopholes are not in abundance.

More interesting for me was the other side of the characters- their emotional, personal side. Krishna’s life after Pooja (his wife), Raghav’s love for Reena even when they are not together and their relation with their sons- Mukul comes out as a man who understands emotions well, something which we do not relate to their profession. The slow revelation of characters display every side of theirs and the telling power of the author that he has in him to keep the reader hooked to his book.

Mukul has made no attempt in hiding who are the people he has referred to in various scams, events and happenings. You find Arvind Hazarika, lady-in-power Sheela Kaul and his son Ranvijay Kaul, leader Kalpana Kumari, D M KarunaKaran, the distorted names implies the obvious people who do not need to be named. Scams like Bofors, 2G, land allocation and events like killing of a model in a bar find themselves a place in this fast paced novel. The only glitch that I found was too many co-incidences but given the magnitude of the canvas on which this book and the storyline is being projected, you can let it pass.

This is the first book my Mukul that I have read (courtesy Blogadda) and I am thinking about getting my hands on others. RIP is a fast paced thriller which will be understood, felt and enjoyed by everybody as it so profoundly deals with the issues our country is witnessing 24x7x365.

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