Don't Tell the Governor: A review of Ravi Subramanian's novel

Book: DON’T TELL THE GOVERNOR
Author: Ravi Subramanian
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 312 
Price: Rs 299

Don't Tell The Governor is a thriller set against the ongoing tumult in the relationship between the Reserve Bank of India and the Central government. The novel weaves through the world of power, politics and lobbying, glamour and corporate malfeasance, and presents, in thinly fictionalised form, several recent events that have hogged the headlines - demonetization, IPL and match fixing, terrorism and fake currency, the surgical strike against Pakistan, Indian public sector banks and their bad loans, Vijay Mallya and Mehul Choksi, to name a few.

So cleverly does author Ravi Subramanian weave fiction with fact, real characters and incidents, that readers may want to Google to understand better what, or who is being referred to. For instance, Pallavi Soni, an important character in the novel, is an Indian actress whose career gets a second wind when she wins a reality show on British TV, and who then goes on to part-buy an IPL team. The parallels are obvious, and so close to real events that you are left wondering whether the fiction Subramanian presents is closer to what may have actually conspired. There's even a smattering of real-life celebrities such as Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, well known business tycoons and sports icons, making the imaginary scenario more believable.

Subramanian, of course, has mastered the art of stitching topical issues into engaging fiction – his last book, In the Name of God was set around impossible riches of the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, while the one before that, God is a Gamer, was about virtual currency. His earlier novels too were set in the high stakes world of banking, the greed and corruption therein, that has been so much the focus of recent news.

begins with the appointment of a new RBI governor, Aditya Kesavan an Indian origin academic in a US university who's written a book on the world economy that's taken the world by storm, and is blessed with film star looks to boot. Sounds familiar? Kesavan's handpicked by the government which is keen to have more say in the workings of the apex bank, and feels that an outsider will be easier to control and manipulate. Except that, Kesavan isn't.

Subramanian's primary focus in the book is the somewhat dry, and complicated issue of the independence of the central bank, and the power play with the Centre.

Of course, the world of banking is a complex one and it's necessary to understand some part of the complexity to make sense of the novel. Being a banker himself, Subramanian is able to educate readers of the technicalities in a lucid manner, without becoming pedantic. He's very successful in this and may well pique readers' interest in financial terms and events that they had never known of before.

Subramanian's prose is simple and engaging, and will be understood by most readers, however little they may know of the financial and political world. The text flows freely and smoothly, and the story moves fast from scene to scene, so that there isn't a moment of dullness. Don't Tell the Governor will also open your eyes to the corruption and fraud that underpins much of the financial and political world.