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| Sunday, March 21, 2004 |
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| Sunday, March 21, 2004 |
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Kamaldeep Kaur Toor
The Circle for Vice
The novel opens with the gruesome murder of a research scholar of economics in Pune. The police suspect that the crime may be connected with his research project i.e. investigating links between Kautilya’s Arthashastra and western economic thought beginning with Adam Smith, considered by many to be the father of modern economic thought. The investigation takes Daniel Raikar from the world of academics through the murky world of Mumbai’s underworld, to terrorists from Central Asia and finally ends right in the heart of London with the revelation of a conspiracy of gargantuan proportions. The novel raises questions about the origin of epistemology and suggests western indebtedness to oriental knowledge which the West has appropriated without giving due credit to the East. The final revelation comes when a character proposes, "`85 what if knowledge and social development on this living planet travels with the Vedas? Wherever the Vedas go, they take progress with them? Then it also explains in a single stroke why we were ahead of everyone before Christ and are now relatively backward while the West is so advanced?`85So you cannot conclusively eliminate the possibility that the Europeans grew and developed when the Vedas moved over and we were viciously stopped in our tracks towards progress." The author successfully blends a murder mystery with serious academics without compromising the character of either. The pace of the novel never slackens and the thrill is sustained page after page. It has an interesting storyline and an intelligent plot. Lengthy explanations of economic theories do seem tedious at times but these are integral to the development and understanding of the plot. The book will appeal to intellectuals and lovers of thrillers alike. It is not a dry technical treatise on economic theory but a fictional account full of sensation. The author hints that research scholars should pursue doctoral thesis that compare western and eastern economic theories. This should generate debate in the academia. Nevertheless, the book is immensely absorbing and inspires the reader to deliberate on the questions posed by the author. |
THE novel combines the world of crime with the world
of academics. It raises serious ethical questions on the way
academicians jealously guard their research projects. It is a fast-paced
thriller replete with violence, conspiracy, blackmail and murder. The
major premise of the novel is that the Vedas, Puranas, Smritis,
Sastras or Shrutis are the only sources of enlightenment in
the world and all western knowledge, ranging from theories in economics
to nuclear physics, was appropriated by the West during the heyday of
the imperial rule.