The Secrets of the Dark: The Debt of Blood is Never Repaid Book Review by Arka Chakrabarti

An entire month without reading a book?? Whoa, I am getting older. Did you ever hear them saying your concentration decreases as you grow older! That is what is happening to me. And, then, time seems to fly away all the time.

Honestly, I have not heard about the author before I came across the book. Among both the great epics, I have always loved Mahabharata more than Ramayana but the premise of the book made me pick it up for review.

How does one prepare for a danger one knows nothing about? – The easiest way to forget your limitations is to shift focus from self-absorption to active-facilitation. Dasaratha had not realized his shortcomings because of his absorption in his responsibilities.

There is not much information about the author online but goodreads mentions him to be a spiritual and motivational speaker who holds both an engineering degree and law specialization.  

Okay, so let me start with the book. This is the second part in the series.

I have not read the first book but it was all about the birth and childhood of the sons of Dasaratha culminating in their marriage.

This second book takes off from the decision of Rama’s coronation to twelfth year of the exile period with a peek into Ravana’s psyche and life.

Half the night had been damned by despair and the other half buoyed by hope. Wasn’t this what life was all about?

Dasaratha is sad and suffering from nightmares. He has a sense of impending doom but is unable to figure out the reason. Due to his unstable mental state, he decides it to be the correct time to coronate Rama as the new king and take off time to spend his last years in spiritual contemplation.

Before proceeding, I would like to add that I have just reached pg. 120 and the story has just reached the scene of Kaikeyi asking her boons from Dasartha for Bharata’s coronation and Rama’s exile. In between, there was a bit of introduction of Ravana’s character and how his sins were one of the catalyst in maligning Kaikeyi’s mind.  

Ramayana has been retold many times and we are all aware with it. What makes everything different is the interpretation of different authors.

Decision-making is akin to breathing. Just as in breathing there is careful balance between inhalation and exhalation, decision-making must be a careful balance between personal benefits (taking in or inhalation) and communal harmony (giving out or exhalation).

The author has tried to simplify some of the obscure events in the epic and justifies the philosophical importance behind each event in the footnotes on each page.

Some of the points made by the author are extremely prudent and force you to rethink. And, this is something which I found very interesting:

The word mantra is a combination of two words – man meaning mind and tra (from trayate) meaning control. Mantra literally means that which controls the mind. Mantras are subtle sound waves that soothe the subtle mind. 

I had been researching on the same topic – how chanting mantras affect our mind and body so this piece of information was extremely useful. 

From the point of editing and grammar, I found the book to be very mature except for a few phrases which were a lot cheesier than I would expect in a philosophical manuscript. For example, 

Praise is the temperature at which any human melts. It is the garment that warms a cold body. It is a password to log into the software of any heart.

Death is a universal virus installed in every individual, programmed to terminate and dissolve the machine itself.

I know that the aim of this book is to align it to today’s life but the technical terms in it look really weird and I felt that they break the flow of the book. But, then, that is my opinion. Otherwise, yes, it is a good read. Do try it out!

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

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Sometime last year, I received The Bankster by the same author which I was not very impressed with. It was a plot involving the corporate bankers and secret nuclear project and blood diamonds. But, I was not really thrilled over there and that book had a lot of grammatical errors. I might not be a grammar nazi but the editors are expected to be!!

But, a lot of changes have happened in the last one year. And, his latest book God is a Gamer is a real game changer. The plot is all over there right from America to India which starts with a senator assassinated to a major ATM heist in the heart of New York in broad daylight to a major banking CEO murdered and many more sub plots which will have you reeling!!

Where should I start talking about the plot and which ones should I talk about? Russia plans an imminent change in their payment system and shut down the visa and mastercard and put up a nationalized payment card system. Gillian Tan, a senator, is called upon to control this change as it would result in billions of dollars of loss for the involved parties.

And, soon after, Gillian Tan is assassinated. The scene then shifts to PM’s office in India where appointment for the RBI governor is pending and he looks through the shortlisted candidates. On the other hand, Swami comes to know through his mother that some amount of cash was withdrawn from their neighbour’s account when she reacted to the almost-real looking spam mail.

Turns out that this fraud has happened with many of the customers of NYIB, the bank for which Swami is the retail head of India. Malvika, the CEO, has sour relations with him and holds him responsible for the damage and loss the spam has caused the bank. Soon after, to contain this damage and realizing that the CEO lacks leadership skills, the management of NYIB plans to replace Malvika which throws her into depression.

Aditya is the owner of eTIOS and Indiscape, a BPO which has NYIB as one of its clients and a growing gaming company, is an ex-employee and mentor of Swami. His son, Varun, comes into his life after 20 years and takes over the gaming company with his bright and new-age ideas. He meets Tanya in Rio-de-Janeiro and accidentally bumps into her in Goa and then again in Mumbai.

Tanya, Malvika’s daughter plans a birthday blast for her in Four Seasons during which her colleagues and the who’s who are invited. Even the finance minister makes his appearance and just as he leaves, Malvika is found lying on the ground floor after a 32 floor fall. Tanya actively blames the finance minister.

And, in New York, a grand ATM heist of 5 million dollars in the heart of New York is planned and executed successfully. And, this money is taken from NYIB. The FBI gets on the case and then they start unravelling the threads which connect all the incidents happening.

My Verdict

But, the surprise is at the end of the novel and the tagline befits the plot perfectly! Though you would wonder if the motivation and the target were really in sync with each other.

The novel is breathtaking and everything moves at jet speed. The language is correct and I could spot only one grammatical error in the entire book which was a missing period, nothing major. So, yes, I would say its a treat for any crime thriller lover.

Have you read the book yet? Or, do you love any other book by Ravi Subramaniam? 

Other books I have reviewed:
5 Healthy Takeaways from “Perfect Digestion” by Deepak Chopra
Books 2014 Vol. 9 – “7 Secrets of Goddess” by Devidutt Patnaik
Books 2014 Vol. 8 – “The Sealed Letter” by Emma Donoghue

I love sensational novels. I think we all love sensationalism. We thrive on it, in fact. That is what makes the city times and page 3 circulated far more than the regular newspapers get read. So, when I came across the book, I instantly knew I wanted to read it.

The book is based on the famous divorce case, Henry Codrington vs Helen Condrington, of 1864 in England on the grounds of infidelity on part of the wife, Helen. It was the time when women empowerment movement was gathering quite a bit of attention and Emily Faithfull, a major player in the above divorce case, was an active member of the movement.

Emily Faithfull encounters Helen one day on her way to the press. And, that leads to bittersweet reconciliation between two long lost friends. As the story moves on, we and Emily both get to know that Helen’s cavalier, Col. Anderson, and Helen are having a hushed affair and Emily is a unsuspecting promoter of this affair. 

Helen portrays herself as an ill-used wife of Henry Codrington and a devoted mother of her two girls. While the latter was true to a degree, the first was a twisted version of the reality. The relationship between Codrington and his wife had reached to a cooling degree of affection but it was as much the responsibility of the flirtatious wife as much as the aloof husband. 

But, till a telegram of importance does not get answered to by Helen does Henry think his wife to be cheating on him. Once the suspicion gets rooted, Henry employs a detective to follow his wife and report her movements. Everything was above reproach till she makes a slip and what follows is the infamous courtroom drama. 

To secure her side of the witness, Helen again ropes in Emily to give a testimony against Henry by taking advantage of Emily’s guileless nature.

I could see a lot of parallels from Anna Karenina but the way Helen has been portrayed as compared to the classic heroine is very different. Helen ends up being shown a manipulator and a deceiver, Henry Codrington comes across as a victimized husband and Emily Faithfull is a foolish instrument, dangerous in intelligent hands!!

The book slows a bit at times but it has rave reviews in GoodReads. Feel free to skip or skim some pages and decide for yourself if you would like it. I would say it comes across as a decent read but then you would not miss anything if you do not come across the book. 

Well, as I mentioned while reviewing If it’s not forever, It’s not Love that I am not a major fan of Indian fiction, especially the romance genre. But, when I was browsing through the catalog of Just Books online, I came across this book and picked it up based on the hunch that its cover illustration is interesting. 

Needless to say, I found nothing in the book which could justify the title!! It is a typical story of a South Indian Tam Brahm, on the verge of being over-aged for marriage, breaks through her boring life in Chennai and moves to Mumbai for a corporate experience and new life. 

Sometimes I think Jimmy is totally detached from our work and doing timepass. I like this new word – timepass, like eating peanuts on the train, chumma. Amma will be shocked to know that chumma does not mean timepass in Mumbai but kissing, as I discovered a few days ago, much to my embarrassment and Jimmy’s amusement. – From the Book 

The Plot

Damyanthi is 26 and is despair of her parents. She refuses to marry any of the guys brought forward by her well-meaning relatives and for good reason, to be fair to her. She wants a man who does not have oil slick hair and dreams of a life far away from Chennai where she could do all the forbidden things. She wants to live her life on her own terms and not dictated by the rules of the society.

And, finally, her dreams come true when she is recruited by First Global and shifts to Mumbai in face of much reluctance. There she comes across Jimmy (her colleague and best friend), Sonya (her hot flatmate), CG and finally, Rahul. She meets Rahul on her training program in Goa. He is everything she had ever wanted in her man. But, was he THE one? 

My Verdict
It is one of the lighter reads which you can carry for a train journey. It will leave you with a happy smile though I have to say it will do you good to skip a few pages, here and there. The story breezes through and it is more or less like talking to one of our friends or neighbors and hearing their story. The regular Indian story. Try it out if you are a fan of Indian authors Book Club.

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Books 2014 Vol. 3 – On the List : “The Body Book” by Cameron Diaz