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And Death Came Calling
Along with Ajit Rawat, a computer geek — ‘the weird, nerdy kind of guy one never notices’ who is ‘more comfortable communicating with machines than with human beings’, but with ‘a brain that tickled like a Formula One engine’— Ashwin sets up a new-age security office — Tech Zone — that helps ‘secure’ the homes of high-end customers in the plush colonies of New Delhi. Under this cover are Ashwin’s prying eyes, which notice more than just the obvious. Ashwin lives for the day and moves ahead with a free will that borders on the dangerous. The death of one client, Sudhir Dhawan, and an open Swiss Bank account password on his computer screen, lands Ashwin, for whom ‘death was another facet of life’, with a ‘a six million dollar jackpot’. Thereon begins a roller-coaster ride where Ashwin’s lure of lucre converts him into a conman, whose razor-sharp mind makes him a champion robber, a modern-day jewel thief and a cold-blooded killer. Life becomes a mission and victory the motivation; means no longer matter for the man who believes ‘there is no such thing as a coincidence’. Ashwin loves the ‘unique high that comes from living on the edge’, he likes ‘crime yarns’ and ‘appreciates the creativity and planning that goes into crime’. He believes the ‘body can do whatever your mind wills it to’. Only that his compelling skills veer in a direction that lead to perdition. The only sore in his otherwise astute master plans is Assistant Commissioner of Police Yoginder Nehra, ‘a real hotshot’ with a ‘cold face’.
Other characters in the novel are integral to his machinations — Vikram Khanna, a one-time Bollywood legend, his nurses, Pooja, Seema and Shilpa, ‘the tall, leggy babe’ who Ashwin has a rollicking affair with; Dr Abhir Batra and ‘visual viagra’ Mahima Rai. Deva’s writing is interactive, one that steers clear of the confusing maze of verbosity. Occasional sprinkling of choicest expletives in the text is pretty much expected from the former Army man, Deva. There are ECG killing machines, lethal jellies, state-of-the-art weapons, all ingredients to amaze and enthral at the same time. The plot, more or less, maintains its tempo except at a couple of junctures where it overshoots believability, before returning to the much-needed sense. Overall, And Death Came Calling makes for an exciting read.
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Sometimes
the past haunts, smudges the present and decimates the future. As
happens with the protagonist of author Mukul Deva’s novel And
Death Came Calling, Ashwin Thakur. A father consumed by
tuberculosis, a mother who is a ‘victim of self-induced
alcohol-soaked self-pity’ that propels her to the grave, a loving
sister killed in a gruesome road accident; converts former Army
officer Ashwin into an existential recluse, who lives as if there is
no tomorrow.