"Sethji", a political thriller, by Shobha De.
Sethji is a politician from Uttar Pradesh. He doesn't follow any rules, has no principals, is expert in managing things, works only for himself and is only interested in power. In short he is a typical politician and minister at center, who heads a small party and has become very important in the days of coalition politics.
He has two useless sons and a beautiful, sexy and capable daughter-in-law, Amrita, with whom he has illicit affair. Amrita is a intelligent, shrewd and cool headed women. Even Sethji can not fathom her completely.
Sethji has faced many problems and tricky situations in his life and has come out unscathed with the help of his wits, intelligence and his uncanny ability of exploiting the situation. Now Sethji is in a trouble of his life. Moreover he is incapacitated. The only person who can get him and his family out is Amrita with the help of a mysterious person MK.
Will Sethji come out winner? What does Amrita want? Can she turn on her magic? How will it end? The story takes place in Mumbai and Delhi.
Shobha's writing style is direct. She does not waste time in preamble and gets to the point. Politics today runs on flesh, money and information; and this is the theme of this book. She has portrayed the picture of today's politics brashly. It's a gloomy picture.
The description of various amorous encounters in the book is a bit crude and lacks artistic value or class.
The plot is good. A number of characters are based on real life politicians and smart readers can recognize which ones. The story goes slightly out of control when it moves to Mumbai, but keeps you just interested enough not to lose interest. The end however was bit of an anti climax.
An OK read.
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