The Brahmin: Ravi Shankar Etteth weaves a colourful espionage thriller
Usually, even the best writers limit themselves to one genre preferring to explore its maximum potential instead of branching out at random.
However, from The Tiger by The River in 2001 to The Brahmin now, the subjects and genres Ravi Shankar Etteth chooses to explore are as eclectic as his books.
With The Brahmin, Etteth does not disappoint.
The book, like Etteth’s characters, has multiple facets. An espionage thriller, historical fiction, murder mystery; all these and more.
While The Book of Shiva examined among many truths, the inadequacy of repentance, The Brahmin covers a vast canvas encompassing stories and subplots. The previous book was the story of a monk’s quest of an object of power, which morphed into an inner journey.
A quick flip of the pages makes you believe that The Brahmin is a superterranean exercise that deals with the culture, customs, cuisine, architecture and governance of the Magadha empire cities, but soon you are lost in the interplay of myriad characters, the shadows of subterfuge, the painful ecstasy of longing and the twists and turns of a racy plot.
The Brahmin, King Ashoka’s spymaster, is a complex and subtle personality who can relate the metaphysics of crime to the crime itself. Even as death and deceit force him to remain mostly in the shadows with an occasional foray into the glittering royal court, he is never far from the fulcrum of cascading events. Pataliputra, where the Brahmin lives, is a city of love, treachery, sin, power. Its denizens are players in a constant choreography of conspiracies, blackmail, and violence. The Brahmin is an undoubting force whose arrogance is the resilience that keeps the monarch safe.
When a mysterious assassin begins murdering Ashoka’s concubines, a raktapushpa left beside each body as a mocking challenge, the king orders the Brahmin to find the killer — the search leads him to the bowels of a plot so vast that it could demolish the kingdom itself.
The spymaster finds the secrets in the obvious, the words lost in the silence. He hunts for the truth not in the magnificent edifices of Pataliputra but in the dark simulacrum of its moat. He plunders the shadows to allow light in so he can seize the truth that eyes and ears will not reveal. As one road ends, another fork appears. As murders, machinations and matters keep unfolding, the city retains its immutable character while its contours keep changing from moment to moment. The spectre of war against Kalinga looms. The stakes are high for both Magadha and Kalinga, and there are multiple plots brewing.
Filled with reinvented legends, rich historical details and sharp pithy dialogue, the Brahmin is like a giant spider who weaves the web of death for the kingdom’s enemies from the strands of fast-paced events. I wouldn’t say more due the fear of telling more than the subjective preview a review is meant to be.
It is obvious Etteth has carried out a stupendous amount of research to apply a variety of details to the customs and geography of the time. With Etteth, it is important to read each word carefully to discover what they are hiding. Often you get the unsettling feeling the writer himself is the Brahmin. This is a narrative that makes itself heard through the eyes. In that sense, Etteth is both the writer and the reader.
A quick search of the reviews in the myriad book blogs that are today’s barometer for a work’s measure of success shows why Etteth’s books are commercially successful.
Beyond its lushness and controlled emotion, The Brahmin is a delight for the discerning reader.
No regrets.
No RSVP to the party.