Chanakya’s Chant by Ashwin Sanghi-A book review:

Chanakya's Chant-Book Review- Image courtesy Google

I usually don’t keep tabs on things, however, books are closer to me than any other things. This love affair with books started three years back and since then I have started having my very own tiny library. Recently I touched my one hundredth mark and to honour that thought of reviewing the book that completed my century. This is my first time so please bear with me and do tell me how to improve it for future reviews to be good.

The lifestyle of mine is such that I get forty minutes while going to the office and an hour or so while returning back home to read a novel. So this series on book review will be slow but worth going through, I believe.

The sun was shining bright and the breeze was caressing my hair, which was nourished using hair protein. I closed this book and took a sigh of relief on finishing this book, which initially I thought was little boring. But pre-conception about anything is really bad and we should avoid it, right?

A friend of mine recommended this book to me as he knew I love reading books on mythology, history, politics and economics and this book has all the crucial elements in it except mythology. A fictional read alternating with some facts perfectly moulded to set the context for the contemporary world.

Chanakya is deemed as the person who was quick witted, smart, intelligent, and knowledgeable and someone who can predict future merely based on his socio-political calculations. The book starts with a prologue to tell that this book will alternate between the past and the present and here the past and the present is about Indian political system.

While one chapter depicts how Chanakya became the best kingmaker of his era by putting Chandragupta as the supreme commander, the king of Bharat; the second chapter dictates the story of present India’s king maker Gangasagar a self-made man and a person who knows where to put the bucks, who helps a girl to become the prime minister of India and how he played along the lines of politics to do that.

The novel starts pretty slow and after reading the first chapter I told my friend “Shit, I think I put my money on the wrong book.” And he immediately replied, “Give some time to story to cook and promise you will say the opposite of what you are saying right now.” I obliged him and started reading it and marking the things which I really liked in the book and when I closed the book I called him again,” Brother, I love you!” and he just laughed and said, “I told you.”

The analogies given by the author is really smooth and doesn’t look like he is unnecessarily trying to use ornamental English. I think, he likes using synonym feature of the text editor as some of the words used could have been replaced by simple yet effective words.

The roles of the characters are clearly defined and you can easily depict what the character might think when his cue comes. The switching between chapters are super silky and the concept you will learn from Chanakya will be seen been implemented by Gangasagar in real life in the contemporary world. The relationships between the characters are shown clearly and you don’t have to turn back even a single page to understand the context or remember how the story was coming up when you left it in between to do your chores.

For the reader like me who can’t afford a single go to a novel, it’s a perfect read, though it felt little less engrossing sometimes and yes, a book which has the capability to be adapted as a movie in coming future.

Rating time:

Disclaimer- The rating is based on my personal thinking and can vary person to person. The points taken consideration for this novel are specific to this novel and will change according to the novel reviewed.

Stylistic invention means the way the narrative has been written and the innovation brought into structure sentences and paragraphs. Craftsmanship depicts the natural flow of the words and dialogues and the when reading aloud the dialogue sounds credible and expressional. Characters can be round drawn or can be skilfully drawn having a real life of their own- Dress, style, speech, beliefs, social situation, sexuality, age, gender, wealth and other socioeconomic factors. Credible dialogues mean whether the dialogues can be used directly in the movie and won’t lose their lustre upon usage.

Plot and narrative stamina: 3        

Stylistic Invention: 2

Craftsmanship: 3

Characters: 3

Credible Dialogue: 4

Overall: 3