Luckily for me I picked up the scintillating Sea of Poppies first. Egged on by my friend Oxymoronic who waxed eloquent about Amitav Ghosh, I made bold to order The Calcutta Chromosome too.
Right in the first chapter I was highly gratified when Ava was introduced. It is not often that I find my namesakes in literature and this one is not merely a woman, she is a computer, a worthy successor to Hal. Ava is an intelligent, interactive computer who is equipped to solve ALL the problems of the world.
The story goes something like this. Antar is some kind of a worker for an insurance firm who need not leave his home. He is (sigh – yeah dream on) connected to work from home. His computer, Ava (sounds lovely eh?) pops up some information at him which intrigues him. He finds himself in pursuit of a colleague Murugan, given up for lost since long. Murugan had been hot on the chase of Dr Ronald Ross who was the person who discovered all about malaria. In his pursuit Murugan had found out that Dr Ross, who had conducted most of his experiments in India, had mysteriously acquired two assistants, Mangala and Krishna. Murugan pursues all the leads relentlessly in his quest for truth, culminating in his disappearance.
The book is full of medical-scientific references, after all it is about malaria. Murugan discovers (thru Ross) that malaria, apart from being fatal in instances, also cured syphilis. And that the fever was not all bad. And that the Indian natives, with their acute observation, had cottoned on to these facts and were in fact, feeding the information to the good doctor. It was the earthy, wise and manipulative natives versus the stupid, easily influenced Brits.
From being a racy, cerebral thriller, the book, towards the end, disintegrated into almost an Alice thru the looking glass finale when all the characters turn into cards and fly at her. I felt a little like Alice myself, lost and puzzled and wondering why the pace picked up so much towards the end, why all the clues were coming so fast towards Murugan, why was he making so many discoveries. I almost drowned in the sea of information and forgot what we were all looking for in the first place, Me and Antar and Murugan and Urmila.
Right in the first chapter I was highly gratified when Ava was introduced. It is not often that I find my namesakes in literature and this one is not merely a woman, she is a computer, a worthy successor to Hal. Ava is an intelligent, interactive computer who is equipped to solve ALL the problems of the world.
The story goes something like this. Antar is some kind of a worker for an insurance firm who need not leave his home. He is (sigh – yeah dream on) connected to work from home. His computer, Ava (sounds lovely eh?) pops up some information at him which intrigues him. He finds himself in pursuit of a colleague Murugan, given up for lost since long. Murugan had been hot on the chase of Dr Ronald Ross who was the person who discovered all about malaria. In his pursuit Murugan had found out that Dr Ross, who had conducted most of his experiments in India, had mysteriously acquired two assistants, Mangala and Krishna. Murugan pursues all the leads relentlessly in his quest for truth, culminating in his disappearance.
The book is full of medical-scientific references, after all it is about malaria. Murugan discovers (thru Ross) that malaria, apart from being fatal in instances, also cured syphilis. And that the fever was not all bad. And that the Indian natives, with their acute observation, had cottoned on to these facts and were in fact, feeding the information to the good doctor. It was the earthy, wise and manipulative natives versus the stupid, easily influenced Brits.
From being a racy, cerebral thriller, the book, towards the end, disintegrated into almost an Alice thru the looking glass finale when all the characters turn into cards and fly at her. I felt a little like Alice myself, lost and puzzled and wondering why the pace picked up so much towards the end, why all the clues were coming so fast towards Murugan, why was he making so many discoveries. I almost drowned in the sea of information and forgot what we were all looking for in the first place, Me and Antar and Murugan and Urmila.
