This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Aadisht Khanna writes that “the book violates all the unities. There is no unity of place. The plot jumps from Shillong to Madras to Dubai to Ireland to the NWFP. There isn’t unity of characters either. Characters are brought in, given dialogue that sounds like an Indian National Interest blogpost, and then disappear, never to be seen again.” He’s talking about Tarbela Damned - Pakistan Tamed, a new book that he just can’t not love.
The book deals with the coming together of the Indian Intelligence services (RAW), and the Mossad of Israel, with help from the Irish Republican Army, to strike at one of Pakistan’s most prestigious and sensitive structures, the Tarbela Dam…this (made)possible because an Indian Jew who after graduating from IIT Madras, emigrates to Israel to join the Mossad, teams up with his schoolmate, now an officer in RAW. The two men have been deeply influenced by their teacher in school, the Irishman, Brother Manahan, who has inculcated in them a sense of admiration and empathy with the IRA.” [From the book’s dust jacket]
The book claims to be a work of fiction. This, in the considered opinion of The Acorn spoils the fun. No self-respecting intelligence agency can do without sympathetic memoirs, unauthorised exposés, co-existing allegations of incompetence and high interference in foreign countries and of course—conspiracy theories, the wierder the better.
The subcontinent is witnessing a broader trend of wrongly classifying books that should be nipped in the bud.
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