Trying too hard with multi-faith many-cultured ambience

Being an aficionado of riddles, puzzles, trivia and quiz shows I watch KBC regularly so I was intrigued because a novel based on a popular game show seemed to be both topical and imaginative. The plot is simple enough--the hero, abandoned as a child and given the unusual name Ram Mohammed Thomas by a Catholic priest, when Hindu priests and Muslim mullahs argued that he could be of either or any faith, grows up to be one of the legion of urban uneducated youth of the city and wins a billion rupees on a television quiz show very similar to KBC.

The producers of the show have him arrested on charges of fraud and try to prove that Thomas cheated to win the jackpot but the young man in a night long confessional, carries us through each answer which came to him as a part of his journey through life. Since the questions are apparently selected randomly from a bank fed into the computer so it just happens that Ram Mohammad Thomas gets the twelve or is it thirteen answers right. He explains how he knew the answers to all the questions and we learn how a boy born on Christmas Day, becomes Mohammed to his friend Salim, Thomas to an Australian diplomat and Ram to the aging actress Neelima as each story gives Thomas reprieve from the case. It is an interesting premise because it illustrates the inherent element of chance, fortune or life experience that determines how one will perform in any given situation.

Swarup's narrative takes us on an expedition through the gritty reality and sordid netherworld of Indian cities. It is in the chawls and mohallas of these cities that we are introduced to the many colorful characters which are a part of the collective South Asian lexicon and to the modern Indian panorama. From slums to the Taj Mahal it is bleak and grand by turns. As street children influenced by the all pervasive movie culture of Bollywood, Thomas and his friend Salim dream of becoming film stars and fantasize about the heroines. It is a world that they finally break into and as the twin strands of a TV quiz show and a biography merge, Q&A ends in--what else--a perfect Sholay moment.

The characters who feature in Thomas' life, though sometimes sketchily penned, are evocative of the whole South Asian experience--the aging actress Neelima evoked memories of stories read and heard about Meena Kumari; the diplomat who trades state secrets; the betting syndicate where Ahmed Khan puts money on Sachin Malvankar's 37th Test century and the beggars' conglomerate which sends children to the streets are familiar to us all if not at first hand then through newspapers and the Television.

In a recent interview Swarup said "I did not want to write about the privileged class, I wanted to explore the core of contentment in the under class. It is something that you have seen in Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay. The challenge was not to adopt a patronising tone nor a syrupy style." He succeeds to the extent that it is a racy read; in fact a friend of mine read the first half in the backseat of a car going from Gulshan to Motijheel during rush hour which can be construed to be as much a comment on the readability of the book as on the problems of Dhaka traffic!

However my main criticism is that Swarup tries too hard with the multi-faith many-cultured ambience so that while some of the episodes ring true others do not. It might just be a matter of personal taste but I find the effort to be all-accepting to all men a mite tiresome. Also the language does not sustain the narrative as it promised to do. A Seth or a Roy he is not, but Swarup is charming and beguiling in a manner entertaining enough to provide one evening's amusement.

In fact the novel reads more like a screenplay of the Amar Akbar Anthony variety so it was not surprising when Swarup confessed that "Hindi films have been a great influence." Indeed a Gurinder Chadda or Mira Nair version on the big screen in the very near future is not just a possibility but a probability.

My main interest in the book is its relevance to contemporary taste--particularly the effect that television in the form of a personality and a programme have on the popular imagination. The unpalatable diet of repetitious situations on the family soaps as well as the gratuitous violence and sex not only on the programmes but on the news actually make a general knowledge game show appear enticing. With its interesting blend of arcane facts, trivia and snippets of popular lore; a mélange of entertainment, common sense and observational skills as well as sound general knowledge, KBC captures the popular imagination because most people can play along and if they are Indians get most of the answers right.

Apparently there have been fifty million phone calls to the show from people eager to take up the challenge. It just goes to show that clean family oriented programmes have an appeal--a programme that one can watch without blushing in the company of the elders of a family or with children has become rare indeed and lifelines, confident, sure, lock the answer appear to have become part of the contemporary vocabulary.

The added attraction and a lot of the success of the show is created by the mellifluous voice and glamorous personality of Amitabh Bachchan as he conducts the show with a rare aplomb. With his flawless Hindi and impeccable English Mr. Bachchan is almost never at a loss for words. I say "almost" because proposals of marriage tend to make him speechless with shock as does the unabashed adoration of his legions of followers. Yet even as he blushes slightly and looks down in embarrassment he is ready to take the show forward and on to the next question on the computer screen.

Which brings me to my question: Isn't it time we had a Bangladesh version of KBC with perhaps the inimitable, multi-talented Aly Zaker as the host? Television programme producers are you reading this?

Yasmeen Murshed is a full-time bookworm and a part-time educationist . She is also the founder of Scholastica School.