Book review: A world full of Nakuls, Vidurs and Narads

After two long weeks inching my way through Madhav Mathur’s Dvarca, trying my hardest to read with my eyes squeezed tightly shut, I finally closed the novel with the most savage of murders on my mind.

There are two people I want to first stab through the heart with a very pointy fountain pen, and then wham hard over the head with a laptop: the author and his editor.

This could have been a good book. Even an excellent book, the kind that would have had me raving from the rooftops — if it hadn’t been for the author and his editor. It could have the perfect book for the times we live in: these times when the government has its hands on all our money, not to mention in all our other doings, up to and including our food and drink. This might have been the book of 21st century politics. Or, at least, it could have been an amazing, immersive young adult category not-so-futuristic novel worth several sequels.

But it isn’t either of those things. Because of the author and his editor. And that makes me so angry that I’m damned if I’ll be polite in this review. I’m just going to spill my rage, bleeps and all.

Dvarca (formerly Bharat) is a country in which the Great Leader’s vision of Navmarg is fully in place. Navmarg is the result of Shashtriji’s great revelation: Hindu violence must replace all other violence. So Dvarca’s citizens live for God and Country and are fitted with rose-coloured spectacles (Distant-Directives, DDs for short) via which they are controlled by their government.

It’s a world in which people are born in debt for the karma of their past lives, and must earn Punya Bindus to achieve a better life next time. Not that that will make much difference, because they are classified into a system of roles in society and have no individual names, or, actually, lives, since the government controls everything from household goods to inner thoughts. For instance, many boys are Nakuls. They will grow into aggressive national defenders. Others are Vidurs, who will develop great minds. Some will become Gandharvas — accountants. Others will be Narads — creative types.

Young women are all Miras, trained to nurture. When Miras grow up, they’ll be Jyotis, homemakers and low-level workers, with one main job: to give birth. But conception doesn’t happen via sex — only the animalistic peoples of Hedonesia, the western world, have sex. Conception is via a laboratory, where Vishvakarmas (scientists, all male) play with genes to create better humans for God and Country, minus sex drives. (The Narads, incidentally, are being phased out.)

This is a world in which people are implanted with devices that change dissenting verbal speeches into lists of fruit and vegetables. (The Vishvakarmas are working on an upgrade that will detect and do the same to sarcasm.) There are reality TV shows that incite mob violence against inappropriate people. There are other TV shows in which people are encouraged to abuse women in Western wear. Mantras are recited at appropriate times.

It’s a world that is separated from our own only by a small stretch of the imagination and it would make for a brilliant book — if it hadn’t been for the author and his editor.

Mathur’s created world is fairly well put together. His characters are not quite as well-drawn, but they aren’t bad either. But I only discerned the barest semblance of a plot in the book. Actually not much a plot as certain events that appeared to be significant scattered here and there, to what purpose I still did not understand by the last page. I gathered that some of the characters were getting a bit disenchanted by their lives despite the rose-coloured spectacles, but I wasn’t sure if they intended to do something about it. Somewhere around page 206, I thought I glimpsed a storyline, but it must have been a manifestation of my desperate need to find some reason to continue reading other than to write this review, because I saw no more of it thereafter.

The reason I feel so savage about Dvarca is, as I said at the start of this piece, it could have been an incredibly good book. The idea is great and the fictional country is well-realised. But the author and his editor have been lazy. They took this well-created imagined world, and did nothing with it. The plot (if there is one) is barely discernible. There is no storyline. The characters seem to exist only to display the world they inhabit, so they are demonstrators rather than people. And the writing is terrible: so self-consciously portentous, that even though there are paras that make you smile, you almost miss them because your eyes are glazed. Summed up in one word, the book is a shell. As much a shell as the Great Leaders it sets out to mock.

If I could influence Dvarca’s publishers, I’d tell them this: Withdraw the novel as it is now. As far as I’m concerned, this is just a first draft of the first draft. Read J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien and a good translation of Indian mythology to see how created worlds don’t overwhelm stories. Then sit together and rework the book from start to finish. I’m 90 per cent sure the result will be a book that I can rave about.

Kushalrani Gulab is a freelance editor and writer who dreams of being a sanyasi by the sea