Get It Now Prey By The Ganges Fashioned By Hemant Kumar Disseminated As Softcover
is the first book I have read that narrates a story based in eastern India, Bihar precisely and what an engaging read, Hemant Kumar is quick, clear and articulate in his narration, A gripping, engaging story with the right amount of suspense, thrill and engagement to it, The author is extremely imaginative in the gripping moments of the book,to the extent that you can see things in the mind while you read along.
Has the potential to be made into another bollywood blockbuster featuring the state of affairs in immediate post independent India, The full review is here: sitelink wordpress. com . Happy reading Bihar. A helpless man witnesses the violent murder of his dearest friend from the opposite bank of the river Ganges and swears to complete the mission of his killed friend and take revenge.
But this was a dangerous mission to accomplish for Sambhu, a doctor because the opponent here is Thakur Gajanan Singh, the ruthless face of the evil incarnate, the feudal lord who reigns in terror in his area.
Sambhu plots meticulous plans of action and after several gory and gripping encounters, eventful trespassing meets Thakur Gajanan Singh in his own haveli, Thus starts the final encounter after which one of them will survive
Read the complete review on my blog
sitelink blogspot. in/ Simply mind blowing!
The story carries the reader into a thrilling world of crime, murder, love and betrayal, The author had gotten my heart racing at several points in this book, In fact, it is so gripping that I finished the whole book in one sitting,
A must read. Unputdownable.
Prey by the Ganges is a fantastic book on eastern India along the river Ganga during those early Independence days, A ruthless story of fate, friendship, violence, fear, rage, lust, resistance amp raw courage in all its umpteen shades grabs your attention that you could not really put it down.
it tookhours for me taking into midnight,AM.
soo powerful amp attractive Thakur, bold Etwari, beautiful Rajni, Dhibri, Shambhu who can be anybody, . . the characters manages to transport us in to a lesser known era, .
Prey By The Ganges is a compelling read and I highly recommend this book, MRIGAYA : the man hunt
My friend Ruchira Mittal has presented me the book, Prey by the Ganges by Hemant Kumar, No. No relative of mine. So no bias. Hemant has been a journalist for three long decades before picking up the pen to write his debut novel and that is where I find the link to my own personal experience.
Hemant grew up in Bihar through the troubled sixties and seventies and has witnessed turmoil from close quarters, He feels he has looked violence in the eye, But in the same faceoff, he has come across character of extraordinary solidarityin men and women of ordinary means,
The book reminds me of my own experience with violence in Bihar, Because of the trajectory of Hemant being a journalist and writing the book based on Bihar and myself having worked for a publication having stories based in Bihar, I can tell you that this is a true relection of the state, as it was.
. I joined the ABP Publication Group, One of the publication I handled was Ravivar, It was edited by Surendra Pratap Singh a journalist of eminent repute who later went on to launch the news channel Aaj Tak and created history.
Many took it for a literal translation of the Sunday magazine, But it was not. And this fact was best known by the politicians, the ganglords and the thakurs of Bihar,
Among the many crusades that Ravivar waged the most famous was the cleansing of Bihar of violence, of brutal killing, of perverse gang rapes.
The Politicians to the Gang Lords all hated the Magazine and the Editor for its sustained campaign against them, S P as we called him,travelled in the cowbelt intensively to do stories and interviews, In one of his tour I accompanied him to Bhagalpur, notoriously famous for blinding ofunder trials, or convicted criminals by pouring acid into their eyes.
Our plan was to go to Patna from there where SP had some work and I intended to meet the Bihar Government official for a Tourism Feature.
We started from our hotel in the late evening after dinner and as we made our way towards Bugusarai a trailer bus came rushing out towards our car.
Our driver swerved the car and by centimeter escaped a collision, But this was no accident and from the trailer a man shot at us, S P ducked and seeing his reflex I tried, but I got hit in my right shoulder, The bullet grazed me badly I started to bleed, My editor ordered the car to change direction and to race towards Malda, the nearest big town in West Bengal, We cut short our tour, avoided going to any hospital in Bihar and came straight down to Malda, The story appeared in the pages of Ravivar but though the then Chief Minister Jagannath Misra promised a query nothing happened,
I was given first aid but till date I have the burnt scald of a bullet and as age gnaws I have trouble with my right hand.
I cannot lift heavy weights and my hand freezes sometimes when I am swimming, But my life got saved and I was told by SP,more so, as we avoided any hospitex in Bihar where it could have turned for the worse.
This is Bihar then. The present Chief Minister has changed much of that, but that is another story,
. Our current story is set deep in the heart of Eastern India, This is a story of fate, of fortune, of friendship, of rage and resistance, of indefatigable courage and steadfastness and of relationship in all its myriad shades.
Stories of women and some men reaching across great divides in one of the most treacherous terrains on earth where turmoil reigns and violence against women is unchecked.
Two feuding brothers both young and handsome Thakurs each with a personal army they are fighting an endless battle of wits, guns and lives.
An idealistic young man, son of a traditional bonesetter, picks up the paintbrush instead and goes to live in the mountains, shunning his destiny as a “vaidya” seeking a priceless diamond.
There is also the son of a jeweller who is also after the diamond, What makes a nonviolent man in the prime of his youth risk all to douse the anger in his heart
Prey By The Ganges is the story of one violent night across the Ganges.
A cold, rainy night in a forest, It is the setting for a grisly, soulshattering bludgeoning one that elicits a stirring vow from a friend who is more than a brother, a desperate chase and much more.
This is also where a young man lies in a ditch, in excruciating pain and bleeding heavily, with a knife through his stomach left to die.
I liked the book as it threw me back to my days in the newspaper house, Hemant has been able to weave what is essentially a violent, rustic and evocative tale with polish and substance, The limpid writing style blending violence and fear, quiet strength and raw courage, searing hatred and calm compassion, whitehot passion and serene romance in a neat package, is a readers delight.
It pulls you into the narrative and keeps you there, However, one is also left to ponder over whether being armed with moral courage, fearlessness, honesty, sensitivity mean anything at all, against firearms and weapons,
Hemant has an eye for detail, Every encounter, every twist and turn, the dialogues, the setting, is reasonably well done, Each is a pawn in this bizarre game of life and death, and each with a story to tell, Or hide. The two characters that stand out are those of Thakur Gajanan Singh and Vaidya Shambhu Nandan, Hemant has been able to weave what is essentially a violent, rustic and evocative tale with polish and substance,
Being a Bengali I cant avoid comparing it Tapan Sinhas film Jhinder Bondi, Gajanan reminds me of the handsome, swashbuckling and horseriding villain, the devilish Mayurbahon, Based on a story by Saradindu Bandopadhyay, the creator of Byomkesh Bakshi, “Jhinder Bondi”was a roaring success, And the young Soumitra Chatterjee as the handsome and dashing Mayurbahon, managed to overshadow the matinee idol of Bangla cinema, Mohanayok Uttam Kumar himself,
Its a powerful story, extremely wellwritten and readable, Its characters are highcalibre and its plot has a closetothebone, brutal suddenness, But its violence is not gratuitous, Its deeply engaging, real life, plausible and above all, graceful,. A cold, rainy night in a forest across the Ganges, deep in the heart of eastern India, An unarmed man with anger in his heart and a fortune on his person, A handsome Thakur with evil on his mind and blood on his hands, Both chasing a rare diamond, but for completely different reasons, There are the others toothe Thakur's beautiful wife, the sleazy psychopath, the angry muscleman and the corrupt dairy manager's stunning daughter, Each is a pawn in this bizarre game of life and death, and each with a story to tell, Or hide. There is an inherent pleasure to read a book with little
expectations and be pleasantly surprised with it, Prey by the Ganges by Hemant Kumar maintains a consistent tone over the course of nearlypages and provides a tight thriller that is hard to put down.
It helps that the author is surefooted with the milieu the story has panned itself and brings an ensemble of engrossing characters that are difficult to get out of your mind even after finishing the book.
Set in, during one night on the bank of Ganges, Vaidya Shambhu along with his servant, Hariya, are waiting for his friend, Ravi, who to had gone to Janak Ganj to trade with Thakur Suraj Singh.
Shambhu, helplessly, watches his friend getting beaten to death, When the bandits leave Ravi on the brink of death, Shambhu brings the dead body, washes it and buries it, Intrigued to find the reason of his death, he starts a journey to Janaj Ganj to take on the evil Thakur, Gajanan, Both the Thakurs are competitors and are loggerheads with each other, What follows is a fascinating story about dealing with these two characters and a bloodcurling heist for an exclusive diamond,
From the word go, with the nervewrecking description of killing of Ravi, the author barge in the point that it is not going to be an easy read.
Over the course of the narrative, we are introduced to an eclectic mix of characters the psychopath among Thakur's men, the nubile girl having immense sexual prowess, the wellknitted thakurain, the lusty babe whose piece both the gangs want and many more.
All these characters interwoven seamlessly within the narrative brings about a rollercoaster ride that will engage and enthrall you no ends,
The book flirts with such themes as the compromises of village politics, the price that must be paid for integrity, and the loss of innocence.
Even these revelations aren't of an earthshattering magnitude, and the book feels naive for presenting them as such, But despite its shortcomings, the book works as a tight thriller that sustains dramatic tension throughout, The only time it falters is when all the bloodcurling and abusive scenes starts to appear repetitively, almost sequentially making you feel like skipping the pages and get on the climactic deal.
I am going with,/for Hemant Kumar's debut novel, 'Prey by the Ganges', It is written with love, care and affection albeit portraying emotions of lust, revenge and power, A fresh voice on the Indian fiction circuit, which needs to be loved, nurtured and protected to provide us even better work in the future, Go ahead and get absorbed in a world of gory details, highly recommended!
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