Book review: 'Marathon Baba'

Marathon Baba
Author: Girish Kohli
Publisher: Fingerprint
Pages: 255
Price: Rs150

Take everything logical that makes sense to you. Turn this knowledge upside down. Twist it. Fold it. Until it seems more jumbled up than the tiles of a Rubik’s Cube. Then perhaps you will make sense of Marathon Baba. If you can’t manage any of this, you can still read the book, but be warned: you will meet absurd characters who speak in filmy hyperbole and find themselves in situations so bizarre, that you will want to know what happens to them.

The protagonist Karna is a regular guy who lives in the City of Slums and has had a troubled childhood, thanks to parents who fight a lot. He has a girlfriend called Honey, and the two are just about to elope when she calls to tell him that she can’t run with him. “Why?” asks Karna. “Because running is injurious to health,” she replies. Karna is devastated, but the worst is yet to come — he gets a job. Finally, fed up with his corporate prison, Karna runs. The story is about how he becomes Marathon Baba and what happens thereafter.

The novel, at times, pokes fun at Indian society — like the corruption within the police force, the system of begging and the blind faith towards a holy man. It discusses morality when Marathon Baba decides to sell weed to disciples at the ashram. At one point it even delves into serious philosophy as Baba discusses Herman Hesse’s novel Siddhartha.

But everything is made irreverent by the writing. In the world imagined by author Girish Kohli, a lift opens its arms to a fleeing Karna, the moon romances with the river, and somewhere in a secret office, fate sits behind its teakwood table smoking a pipe and approves a plan that ensures nothing goes according to plan.
The secondary characters are intriguing too. For instance, the soon-to-be Marathon Baba meets Bawa, a rockstar and dope dealer, in jail. When Bawa gets out of jail he turns into his alter ego, Java. When Karna questions the change in Bawa’s character outside prison, he replies, “Inside the prison, I am Bawa the drummer. Outside prison, I am Java the punter.”

The line is so cheesy it could be from a Rajinikanth film. However, unlike a Rajinikanth film, the entertainment is restricted to the dialogues and doesn’t reflect in the story itself. The villain is introduced far too late in the story. His motive is ordinary. The plan is far too plain. And his evil dwarfs next to the character build-up of Marathon Baba. As a result, the book ends with a whimper.

If you like the Quick Gun Murugan brand of humour, Marathon Baba is an enjoyable read.