I hope, that
this will mark the beginning of an era of innovative horror thrillers in India;
that we will graduate from the numerous campus romances; that he will prove
once again that engineering scholars can do literature as well. Coming from the
GreatBong it already carries huge expectation.
It’s his first
try to explore the horror genre but I wish he hadn’t. It is obvious that he
has watched too many Hollywood horror movies. But so have I. So if you know
the Saw series or the Hostel series then you already know everything you are in
for. Blood, gore, gruesome deaths and more blood.
It opens with a prologue too. A sex scene goes wrong and there’s a dead guy and a frozen girl at the end of the prologue. Next is the “Beginning”. Can you now imagine the giant screen going black and “The Mine” written in a blood dripping font appearing on the screen? Yes. Too familiar.
The story is based in an underground mine in the vast deserts of Rajasthan. It is highly secretive as it is mining magic crystals that can provide eternal energy (a straight lift from Knight & Day?) and hence everybody who works here is isolated from the rest of the world. Things go quite smooth until the discovery of an ancient structure with gory statues and scribbling inside the mine sets off a series of mysterious events. The workers stop working and to resolve this management hire five external experts.
When I start reading, I really want to like the book, but it seems a very hard goal to achieve. I can actually guess that there is something wrong with each of the five main characters and that they are going to be punished for their sins. And there is a biblical verse (In this case the gory statues and the scribbling on the ancient structure) that associates each death. May be se7en or even The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the inspiration. But who is taking the responsibility to punish them and what is that person’s motive is not clear. Arnab thinks it is intellectual to leave loose ends. Yes it is okay, even intellectual when you can engage you readers in the discussion, “What was this? Or perhaps who is Lilith Adams? What is her motivation?” But all I think is that the author was confused and so lost that he didn’t know how to weave the plot. And I don’t care about the questions. He tests your patience in this book. When the main characters die and you couldn’t care less, and you don’t bother to know their sins for which they must suffer, you know it’s time to throw the book away.
But I don’t want to hate it. So I go on hoping that the Great Bong will bounce back and present a nice and gripping end at least. But the end is also on the expected line with the sole intention of a final punch that fails to place its impact. I take too long, unnecessarily, to decide that the book has nothing good to offer except for the back cover blurb to lure readers in.Follow me.
