The popularity of crime-thriller novels among Indian readers is on the rise. More and more readers are looking for stories set around murder, kidnapping and other crimes. Exploring the genre, authors Anshul Vijayvargiya and Debashish Irengbam have come up with the novel Tune For The Dead: A Detective Dhruv Mystery. Set in the scenic and beautiful town of Manali, the story takes the protagonist of the book, detective Dhruv, through a thrilling journey. As he delves deeper into the mystery, threats against his life begin to multiply. It’s soon clear that he is dealing with a conspiracy that goes far beyond suicides and murders, and that there is more at stake here than just his life.
Ask the authors why they chose this genre, and pat come the answer, “Detective fiction is as such a pretty challenging genre to write for, since you have to be the criminal and the investigator both and make sure that it’s gripping and smart enough for the reader to stay hooked on. That challenge itself was what drew us to this genre in the first place. Plus, it’s been long since a desi detective story has found a prominent space in the commercial fiction.” Debashish further adds, “We love the genre. We really enjoy delving into the dark side of human behaviour. The challenge was to create the right ambiance and extremely intelligent solutions to the complex questions that we threw in front of Detective Dhruv. The mystery will hold you till the very last chapter and you can expect many twists and turns.”
Tune for the Dead: A Detective Dhruv Mystery by Debashish Irengbam and Anshul Vijayvargiya, HarperCollins India, pp.208, Rs 299
Interestingly, it wasn’t exactly the first time that the authors were writing a crime story. Both, Anshul and Debashish, are scriptwriters and have written for TV shows such as Arjun, Adaalat, Agent Raghav, Gumraah, Webbed and Savdhaan India. In fact, the duo are also planning to make a movie on their book. Says Anshul, “It is a great time to be a part of content creation, especially with the internet coming up as such a big platform and television aggressively fighting to keep its stronghold intact. We are also looking forward to a film adaptation of Tune For The Dead. We have adapted the book into a thrilling screenplay and will initiate talks with producers as soon as the book is out.”
Debashish Irengbam
The authors have made sure that the book is very detailed, with each incident folded out for the reader very carefully. However, it wasn’t such an easy task. It took Anshul and Debashish around a year to complete the book, and they had to put in hours of extensive research into it. “It required extensive research not just geographically, as the story travels to several locations, but also a lot of research went to create the kind of socio-political relevance that the book has. The book may be a work of fiction but we wanted to make sure that the world it was set in was as believable as they come. We are sure the readers will thoroughly enjoy the world we have created and love the principal characters too.”
Tune For The Dead is, in fact, the first book in a series that the authors plan to write. Reveals Debashish, “We have started working on the next book in the series of Detective Dhruv Mysteries. It is going to be very different from this one and will take Dhruv into realms beyond his comprehension. And unfortunately, that’s all we can divulge about it as of now!”
India’s most celebrated women’s cricketer and national team captain Mithali Raj says, “A lot of people don’t realise that when we prepare for any big matches or national games, most of us train along with the boys. Even if we play for India, our practice games are usually played against the boys. For us, it’s not something new, but yes, for the general public, it will be a new concept.When you play a match, there are so many interactions that happen on ground - I’m looking forward to it.”
India’s T20 captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who calls this a great concept says she’d love to play a game with Virender Sehwag. “As a kid, I always wanted to bat with him. Also, it’ll be an honour to play with cricketers like Virat and ABD.”
With the IPL being massively popular in the country, is it time for a women’s T20 league?”Yes, it’s very much needed. If you look at Australia and England, they’ve already been doing it. There’s a lot of improvement in the national side set up as well. The gap between domestic and international - that’s where IPL will come into play. We can explore more people to see if they can handle the pressure and do well at the international level. A lot of people at the IPL level have performed well and made it to their national squad. So, a league is needed to make sure the gap is smaller,” answers Veda.
Mithali, who’s been calling for a women’s T20 league feels it’s crucial to have one now that the following for women’s cricket has grown in leaps and bounds. “The team’s been doing well. We need to give people some push to look forward to various other than the international series which we play. We’ve seen how these leagues have helped Cricket Australia or ECB England when it comes to the domestic structure. It’s not just about BCCI taking the initiative, but more franchises need to come in to start a league. Maybe we could start off with three to four teams and then slowly take it to eight teams.”
Echoes Harmanpreet. “In the domestic circuit, we currently don’t have many live games. For the women, it’s usually a jump from the domestic to India level — so there’s not much experience in between. If an IPL is introduced, domestic players can share the dressing room with international and other Indian players and get some good experience. It’ll be nice for them to play in front of crowd and under the cameras.”
