Mathew Joseph

Although this is about a Marxist leader who disappears to become a Godman on arrival of his love child and ends his life at the end, a stream of subjects are paraded in a fun filled sarcastic style that is easy to read. ‘Frauds in the pond’ covers Punjab to Kanyakumari and Mumbai to Varanasi with shocking incidents that a novelist with a journalistic field experience can only write. I think ‘Frauds..’ is indeed a literary incident of the year. Shankar dada the Bihari book seller near Linking road in Mumbai who is a lawyer by background, Ayyappan another street bookseller in Kerala who is a double PhD are all funny characters. This novel can pull readers as the language and style is very original and theme so powerful. Like Arundhati Roy the treatment of language is different. This could be the first novel that discusses Indian publishing industry through the eyes of book seller scholar Ayyappan. Writers like Arundhati Roy, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jumpa Lahiri, Vikram Seth, Manjushree Thapa, Muttathu Varkey, M T Vasudevan Nair and their works are criticized. From exporting owls to Harry Porter fans in UK and importing strange wild beings from Wuhan market in China, Ayyappan is the epitome of frauds. I read the novel with great interest as Josma has proved that he is a master writer. The plight of street children is another thing. It is true that some dog lovers may be getting foreign funds. But normal people who love pets are not doing that to get foreign funds. If it was to describe the pitiful situation of the orphan boy being bitten by street dogs, then why police beats him unnecessarily? Only the street dogs came to question the police then. Josma is a thoroughly enjoyable novelist. Evangelists and pastors who preach after giving Biryani and the saffron bombs that bursts there to be followed by red bombs give the taste of present day facts in ‘Democristan’ where the story happens. Opposition leader Vikraman’s story is surrounded by a rally of incidents to make this 352 page novel an enjoyable reading experience. The fight between genuine Ayurveda practitioners and the new generation OTC medicine makers and their advertisement mania has never been a subject for a fiction anywhere. But here it is depicted with great mastery. The chapter ‘Vaidyar Vs Viagra’ is a great read. ‘Frauds in the Pond’ presents Kerala in original much better than Anita Nair and others who wrote with Kerala background. Characters like Lucky Singh Beggarwala who runs National Begging Corporation Limited and formation of State Mango nut Development Corporation gives ample fun and becomes exact example of social and political criticism. This political satire has all the strength of becoming the best read book in 2020.