I am a sucker for Indian corporate drama. I don’t know if it is a defined genre. If not, it should be. I was introduced to it by Ravi Subramanian’s Banker series, and totally fell for it. Possibly because I could relate to the aspirations, apprehensions, and relationships of the characters. Having experienced those myself in the 7 years I spent in Indian corporate life.
RV Raman is a brilliant exponent of the Indian corporate drama genre, taking it a step further into murder mysteries. I had read two of his previous books along similar lines - Insider and Saboteur. Those were great, and as is Conspirator. I finished the book in a week - something of a record for me (I labored over Kanan Gill’s Acts of Got for over three weeks, and couldn’t get myself to read over 60% before finally giving up).
The plot of Conspirator revolves around the manipulation of news by media houses in India. It focuses on the employees - high and low ranking - of these media houses, ranging from the owners, to star TV news anchors, to moralistic editors, all the way down to unpaid interns. While there is a murder being solved by the energetic and optimistic Inspector Dhruvi, it merely serves as a thread to string together the orders of magnitude larger chaos around it, and I love it.
Raman’s writing is compelling. The story keeps moving forward at a reliable pace. The language is simple enough to be easily understandable, and yet not overly simplistic, so it doesn’t read like it was written by and for 8th graders (I’m looking at you, Chetan Bhagat).
I do find Inspector Dhruvi’s character a bit one-dimensional. She is a robot following a chain of logic. She doesn’t get resentful, disheartened, upset, mad, or have any emotions really, when her work is blocked twice - once by a DIG and once by a DCP - while she is actually trying to solve serious crimes. I don’t know if it’s just me, but if I am already going above and beyond my job description for the greater good, and I get pulled up, I am going to pretty pissed off. That is just one illustration, other than tearing up at the sight of dead bodies, Dhruvi doesn’t seem to develop any emotions at all. Seriously, she’s a young and attractive woman, she didn’t think one of the male characters was attractive? or ugly? She doesn’t have career ambitions? She doesn’t seem to have friends either. All this makes her character quite difficult to relate to.
I don’t love it when authors mess up languages they don’t speak natively, but their characters do. Like, look at the exchange below:
“Kaisi ho, beti? Sab changa?’ ‘Haan, sir. Upar wale ki dua.”
No Punjabi has ever said the words “Sab changa?”, the closest correct version would be “Sab theek?”. Raman would have found that out if he had asked one Punjabi person. Similarly, the second line, in Hindi, is also grossly wrong. Upar wala dua nahi deta, kripa karta hai.
Another, non-trivial observation I have is that the storyline, at many points, seem to imply that the ruling party is clean, but the opposing party is manipulating media against them. The book came out in 2018, Mr. Raman. That is the opposite of what was happening in India at the time, and still is. I don’t know why the desire to slant the book like that, when you could have easily written it just as effectively, while staying neutral.
Overall, while I was starting to find Dhruvi’s lack of character annoying, and apart from minor annoyances I mentioned above, the book kept its grip on me till the end. I am happier for having read it, and look forward to reading more of RV Raman.
Rating: 4/5