Book: Catching the Departed

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Author: Kulpreet Yadav

Publisher: India Research Press

Pages: 486

Price: Rs 284

Good books have no religion, and great stories have no pedigree. For me a successful book is the one that effectively communicates with the readers.

Catching the Departed is about Andy Karan, an undercover spy, who works for a weekly news magazine in New Delhi. He is 29, has worked for five years in the army and is a loner. Like his namesake from the Mahabharata, he has a damaged past and he values loyalty, even in the face of a failure. Andy Karan is anti-smart, some might conceive. But the fact that he is ready to risk everything to save his nation reflects the sentiment of thousands of faceless Indians who are fighting a daily war against corruption and corporate greed. That he likes bananas and Old Monk rum lends him a personality the readers can relate to. After all we have our favourite poisons that help us drown our temporary sorrows.The real challenge for me was to deepen Andy Karan's crisis, to ensure that his conflict was sharpened adequately. To achieve this I worked on the plot for a long time. I also kept the opening chapter compelling, with the right amount of intrigue. Finally, after I was done writing and revising, the opening chapter became the prologue.In the novel, Andy Karan is in a real mess and as the story progresses, his mess intensifies. I have surrounded him with deceit and violence, given him no aids, except guts and instinct. I have also kept the descriptions bone-dry, and to the extent I could afford, I didn't allow the plot to move away from the protagonist. Andy Karan is a rare hero without a vice, but the dark past that haunts him all the time makes him fallible.Monica, Andy Karan's boss at the news magazine, is an important character in the novel. As she challenges her long held beliefs about honesty and loyalty in the face of Andy Karan's crisis, for which she is responsible in a way, she discovers love and freedom like never before. Her past turns into an apparition and the future, a foreseeable memory. Monica's love for Andy in the story transcends boundaries: of danger, time, age, purpose and calamity. And in the end she becomes expendable like the idea of love itself, turning into the mirror image of Andy Karan's spirit. Monica was a difficult character not just to create but also to crisscross through the life of Andy Karan. Even after the novel, she lives on in my mind.I didn't use too many dialogues in the novel which most argue are necessary for thrillers as they move the plot forward at breakneck speed. To offset this, my plot has multiple settings. It's set in Delhi, Mumbai, a village outside Delhi and the island of Murud Janjira in the Arabian Sea. In addition, a third person narrative POV allowed me to intensify the roles of some of the other characters.But like all thrillers, the crisis is resolved in the final chapter with a hint about what to expect next as Andy Karan moves to a different setting and a new case.I would request those who imagine Mahabharata as an epic from the distant past, to observe their surroundings carefully once more. Catching the Departed discovers a new Kurukshetra in the present epoch where Karan is back, determined not to lose this time. He might be a lesser God, but like all young Indians, he is a greater Hero. Andy Karan's faith to fight on without worrying about the outcome is the driving sprit behind the series.Kulpreet Yadav's thriller novel Catching the Departed was shortlisted in 'Hunt for the Next Bestseller' by Hachette-DNA in 2014