With the elections coming up in 2014, leading political parties and politicians are on votebank appeasement mode and the public is ranting about ‘how the country is going to the dogs’!
With the elections coming up in 2014, leading political parties and politicians are on votebank appeasement mode and the public is ranting about ‘how the country is going to the dogs’! Nobody knows what the nation will look like in two decades from now. Author Shovon Chowdhury has come up with his own version of the future in his book The Competent Authority. The book portrays India as not shining at all with the Chinese having nuked large parts of the country; Mumbai obliterated; Delhi in the throes of rigorous reconstruction; Bengal a protectorate of China and the south, a distant and tranquil place that nobody visits. And to top it all, the most powerful person in the country is a deranged bureaucrat called The Competent Authority, who has used his official position as the head of the Bureau of Reconstruction, to subvert all forces of governmental authority and the only person who can stop him is Pintoo, a mutant 12-year-old from Shanti Nagar, where all the poor people live. Quite grim, one would say! But if you are familiar with Shovon’s brand of sarcastic humour through his blog, you will have fun reading this work of fiction. Talking about the premise and context of his book, Shovon puts forth, “I tried to answer two questions — how did we get so screwed up and how do we unscrew ourselves. I wanted to set the story in the future because this would mean less research, so the whole thing would get finished quickly! To visualise the future, I simply extrapolated from the present and took some current things to their logical next step. Everything makes complete sense.” The author has been known for his blog, India Updates, that looks at the current issues affecting the country through dark humour. It has been condemned for venturing into contentious terrains. “I had been slogging over my book for almost 11 years. But my publishers suggested it would be wise to start a blog to gain some name recognition. So I obviously went and did a blog that’s completely anonymous. I thought this would give it more authority. It’s like the Economist, except in much poorer taste,” jokes Shovon. Elucidating about his blog, he points out, “A lot of the people I make fun of are rich and powerful and unbelievably privileged. We don’t have many weapons against them, except laughter. They can handle it. Whenever they feel low, they can look at their bank statements. That should cheer them up.” His book has 12-year-old Pintoo living in a poor locality as the hero. Of late we haven’t seen many child-heroes. Any particular reason “One of the starting points was the Bank of Bodies, which provides spare body parts to rich people. These spare parts had to come from somewhere. For express deliveries, they do late-night raids on Shanti Nagar, where all the poor people live and take out spare parts. Pintoo happened to get caught by one of the medical military teams. I didn’t think of him as a child-hero. More as just a poor kid. We don’t think enough about poor kids,” explains Shovon. As an advertising guy, do interesting concepts, punchlines and visualisation come inherently “I’m lightning quick with terrible ideas. It’s a panic reaction to clients threatening me. The trick is to pick out the occasional good one,” he says with his trademark humour intact. Just like his blog, which has been condemned from time to time, does he expect his book to ruffle quite a few feathers, especially as India is portrayed as ‘not shining’ “I was made to take out some of the ruder bits, which is probably just as well. Otherwise, everything makes perfect sense, and I’m happy to defend my conclusions. And it’s just a possible future. We can make it different. It’s hard to see us shining, but I wouldn’t rule out a mild glow,” the author concludes.
