SHORT TAKES
Crime chronicles
Reviewed by Randeep Wadehra

Inspector Singh Investigates: A Bali conspiracy most foul 
by Shamini Flint.
Hachette India.
Pages 294. Rs 295.

AS a genre, detective fiction or whodunit is comparatively a newcomer. It evolved during the first half of the 20th century’s. Edgar Allan Poe, who created the world’s first fictional detective named C. Auguste Dupin, is considered its progenitor. Since then, several famous characters have been regaling readers around the world. There was Wilkie Collins’s Sergeant Cuff, G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot (apparently, Flint’s favorite), Gardner’s Perry Mason etc. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes became a cult figure. Asian writers in English are not known to have done much in this genre, thus making the Inspector Singh series a pioneering effort of sorts. In this novel – second of the series – Inspector Singh of the Singapore Police, whose specialty is murder investigation, is sent to Bali, ostensibly to help in investigating the terrorist bombings there, but actually his superiors want him out of their hair. His talents come in handy when he is given the responsibility of investigating a murder camouflaged as a bombing death.

The novel is a good read, but could have been better if only the plot was tauter. There are several inconsistencies in characterisations too. For example, Inspector Singh is portrayed both as a tough guy and a softie and, horrors, a chain smoker! Bronwyn Taylor is described as his sidekick even as she is "not really his subordinate" as she is from the Australian Federal Police. Then there is Nuri – a young Muslim girl from Indonesia’s backwaters – who has been brought up in strict conservative atmosphere as a docile creature. But the moment she reaches Bali with her elderly husband, she does not waste much time in getting involved in a deadly extramarital affair. However, these do not distract from the novel’s readability.

Chief Minister Kairon Murder Case
by Anand Sawrup.
Sandeep Publications.
Pages 122. Rs 250.

Not many among today’s youth would recall the name of Partap Singh Kairon – Punjab’s legendary Chief Minister, who is credited with turning the state into India’s most prosperous. He was also known to have thwarted several efforts to divide the then Punjab and for keeping the Akalis’ abrasively divisive politics under check. One February morning in 1965 he, along with some of his aides, was found shot dead in a car near Rasoi village in the present Sonepat district of Haryana. Although there have been speculations of political intrigue being the reason behind the murder, personal enmity has been established as the real cause.

This book quotes from various judicial records to reconstruct the conspiracy. However, it would have made for easier reading if the syntax was given due attention and various typographical and proofreading errors were eliminated.

History of Punjabees
by J.N. Nanda.
Concept Publishing.
Pages xiii+136. Rs 350.

The term ‘Punjab’ is of comparatively recent origin when the region was described as "the land of five waters" by Persians and Mughals during the medieval period. During the Bronze Age, the region was home to several ethnic groups – prominent being proto-Dravidians. The Indus Valley civilisation flourished in the region during the time. Later on, several other ethnic groups like the Scythians, Parthians, Kushans, Huns, Greeks, Persians, Turks etc came here – mostly as conquerors – and gradually mingled with the locals. Today’s Punjabis, thus, owe their ancestry to the fusion of variegated gene pools. Although the author suggests that Punjabi is an ancient language, it actually took its present form during the medieval period. It is variously considered as an apabramsha of Sanskrit, a dialect of Hindi, a byproduct of Persian-Awadhi-Arabic-Rajasthani languages etc. Whatever be its origins, today it is a flourishing language both in Pakistan (Shahmukhi script) and India (Gurmukhi script).

Thought provoking.

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