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This feeling of doubt is emphasised when Bahal very convincingly
makes out a case for the soldier not necessarily being
patriotic. In fact he seems to imply that the soldier's
motivations are to the contrary. "The army fights at the
company level on personal bonds. Flimsy constructs like
nationalism mean nothing to us. You hit at that bond and you
have a bunch of angry men to deal with who suddenly go about
asking themselves what this rigmarole is all about? Why do they
have to risk their lives for a nation that's insulated to their
hardships? Who's skimming the milk and where's their share of
the cream? It's certainly more than the basic 2,000 rupees
take-home plus C-grade rations that include 8 eggs a week. Would
you even risk a single finger for that?" Assertions like,
"Once your morality gets the right hook, your values become
more fluid and malleable. Even at the command level, your
reaction towards unacceptable behavior becomes softer and more
understanding... what you start doing is latching on to anything
that dehumanizes the enemy and dilutes your sense of
responsibility" reaffirm the feeling that the Army is an
organisation with feet of clay and scare the reader into
wondering whether all this is true.
Add to this the
descriptions of army officers who salivate for foreign
cigarettes and booze and preen self-importantly at the thought
of appearing on the BBC, of hostility between two Army units
posted in the same area and the murder and mayhem resulting from
this rivalry and of officers who are not above condoning the
rape of the helpless village girls by their soldiers after a
'cordon-and-search' operation. All of this gives but a taste of
the concoction that Bahal has created in the cocktail-shaker of
his imagination.
Anyhow, the story
moves forward. Lots of military terms come your way. Obviously,
the author knows the nitty-gritty and the technicalities of it
all and can give information on varied topics ranging from army
operations to terrain to logistics, ammunition, arms deals and
aircraft, nuclear weapons and the works. The homework has been
well done and fast-paced action of the book may even make up for
the sweeping statements that the author makes.
To add to the
masala, there is also a 'beautiful babe' ready to be seduced by
the protagonist. Come to think of it, there is more than one,
and their sole purpose seems to be to titillate the reader. M.M,
the hero, and who is, in addition to being a journalist, an
ex-cadet from the NDA and an undercover RAW agent and a double
agent for the "Mossies" (read Pakistanis), deals in
heroin (procured by the aforementioned 'rogue' Army units) with
Russian dealers. Whew! That's some spice there!
The tone of the
book, however, is novel. There is a cynical stance to the whole
narrative, a kind of bored, yet involved, standoffishness, which
is fascinating. It is hard to say whether this is the writer's
or the protagonist's attitude, but it does imply a rakishness, a
'devil-may-care-because-I- certainly-don't' feeling, that is
certainly interesting.
Bahal seems to
have taken it upon himself to "clear the picture" for
the reader, be it the picture of the Army bunker or the
newspaper office. That he decides to clear it with rather acidic
eyedrops instead of soothing rosewater, is, he seems to say, the
reader's problem.
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THIS
book is for reader who enjoys spy stories with plenty of guns and
ammunition, drugs nexus and some dark hints about illegal activities
in the Army. If, on the contrary, murders in the sky, while
para-jumping at that, and inexplicable murders in the National
Defence Academy and other such activities don't excite him and he is
looking for something more than a desi James Bond book, he'd better
search further up the bookshelves.
