At its heart, Autobiography of a Mad Nation is a hand catapult aimed at a system. But the bands have stretched enough to accommodate the full force of conspiracy, intrigue, religion, murder mystery and even a bit of cricket. The projectile then, connects.
The book — tight, straightforward — starts off with a rant from a death row convict and a singular order presumably from a type of President the country recently lost. In his mocking letter, the prisoner laughs off mercy petitions and instead asks the President to investigate a “moron’s murder” and deliver justice.
The executive orders send a former CBI boss into the depths of a conspiracy born in the busy streets of a city the author heavily borrows from — Hyderabad, the author’s former hunting grounds from his days as a journalist.
There are also paragraphs a few might take offence to. Karri has his characters discussing strangely real yet fictional individuals… could be trouble. He, however, pushes ahead with conviction and with the belief the plot will keep water from seeping in. It does. Wholly relying on the mystery, which has been wrapped under layers of relevant commentary without the preaching.
At very regular intervals are also plot progressions — hints hidden at the often-repeated “greater plan at play”. And Karri certainly takes a careful amount of time to land the big punches. Readers will find themselves darting through police stations, party offices, jails, busy city streets and finally, a battle-field… into the skirmish that was to reduce to rubble much-publicised peace talks between two countries.
There are friends caught in the opposite sides of the battle too… which forms an important premise to the book — “if I had to choose between letting down a friend or my country, God, give me the strength to betray my nation”.
Karri then paints using our country’s troubled politics and history to create a book that covers a spectacular amount of ground — everything from the Emergency, the Sikh riots, the Mandal mayhem, the Babri Masjid demolition to Godhra riots. And as CBI veteran Vidyasagar hunts down the “real killers”, the reader is treated to what appears to be Karri’s own take on the state of the nation. That it’s mad.
