The
Brahmin

THE HINDU
The Brahmin' review: a gripping read
Revathi Suresh

The Brahmin is a historical thriller set in the time of Ashoka — when we encounter him here he’s not quite Great as yet, but getting there fast. For now he’s the mighty and feared king of Magadha out to gobble up his much smaller neighbour. But as war with Kalinga looms, a couple of murders in the palace rattle both the king and his men.
To be honest, the reader is not particularly invested in the dead. These are early days, or rather, pages, and we don’t know or care about the victims. What the killings do, however, is introduce the hero, the mysterious Brahmin. He’s Ashoka’s spymaster, his most trusted lieutenant. Move over James Bond.
The palace is teeming with intrigue; in the mix are spies of varying hues, high-ranking schemers and backstabbers, assorted royalty, and an assassin — too many characters for you to wrap your head around; there are more plots and subplots than anyone can afford to build on. As I muddled through the first quarter, I wondered if the writer could gather it all together and pull it off.
He actually does.
The Brahmin is a pretty gripping read and after that first scene-setting hurdle, it takes off at a gallop. It moves swiftly from one city to another, and once things start happening they don’t seem to stop. I found the conclusion a bit knotty, but needless to say, many disasters are averted.
A note about the setting. The writer admits he took some liberties and it’s there for you to see. This is Sanjay Leela Bhansali universe. Everything’s very five-star and posh; mangoes, guavas and pomegranates grow in the same season; gardens, pillars, posts, walls are all perfumed; descriptions of food will make you want to reach for a food delivery app on your phone. The men are buff, dude-ish and deadly except when they are villains, and the women slim, svelte and always beautiful. Like, seriously, can I go live there please?





THE TIMES OF INDIA
'The Brahmin' review: a gripping read

The Brahmin is Ravi Shankar Etteth's fifth book. Like the previous one, his tale is set in India but this time, he takes us to the past.
The Brahmin is set in Ashoka's kingdom. While history mostly remembers how the emperor spread the teachings of Buddha far and wide, in the book, however, we see the war-hungry king he was before he became a Buddhist. Proud, cruel and ambitious, he has not been spared by the author's pen. However, the book revolves primarily around his spymaster, a man known to us as the Brahmin who gives a wide glimpse into the kingdom as he attempts to solve the mystery behind a murder. The protagonist's shrewd reasoning and vast knowledge make the book interesting to read from his perspective.
The book has a gripping start and as it takes the reader right into the story. It is revealed that one of the king's concubines has been murdered and he commands the Brahmin to find the murderer. The rest of the book follows suit and the story is extremely fast-paced. Filled with interesting twists, the story is part suspense and part historical fiction. The insight into the customs and beliefs of the time is fascinating even for those not too interested in history. The author's succinctly descriptive style is rich with imagery without ever slowing the pace of the plot.
The characters -- both the historically significant and the smaller ones, are well crafted and some of them are even likeable. The author's depiction of Queen Asandhimitra as a balance to the King and the chemistry between the Brahmin and Hao is charming.


THE DAILY O
The Brahmin: Ravi Shankar Etteth weaves a colourful espionage thriller
The book, like Etteth’s characters, has multiple facets. An espionage thriller, historical fiction, murder mystery; all these and more.
by Bipin Nayak
Usually, even the best writers limit themselves to one genre preferring to explore its maximum potential instead of branching out at random. However, from The Tiger by The River in 2001 to The Brahmin now, the subjects and genres Ravi Shankar Etteth chooses to explore are as eclectic as his books.

With The Brahmin, Etteth does not disappoint.

The book, like Etteth’s characters, has multiple facets. An espionage thriller, historical fiction, murder mystery; all these and more. While The Book of Shiva examined among many truths, the inadequacy of repentance, The Brahmin covers a vast canvas encompassing stories and subplots. The previous book was the story of a monk’s quest of an object of power, which morphed into an inner journey.

A quick flip of the pages makes you believe that The Brahmin is a superterranean exercise that deals with the culture, customs, cuisine, architecture and governance of the Magadha empire cities, but soon you are lost in the interplay of myriad characters, the shadows of subterfuge, the painful ecstasy of longing and the twists and turns of a racy plot. The Brahmin, King Ashoka’s spymaster, is a complex and subtle personality who can relate the metaphysics of crime to the crime itself. Even as death and deceit force him to remain mostly in the shadows with an occasional foray into the glittering royal court, he is never far from the fulcrum of cascading events. Pataliputra, where the Brahmin lives, is a city of love, treachery, sin, power. Its denizens are players in a constant choreography of conspiracies, blackmail, and violence. The Brahmin is an undoubting force whose arrogance is the resilience that keeps the monarch safe. When a mysterious assassin begins murdering Ashoka’s concubines, a raktapushpa left beside each body as a mocking challenge, the king orders the Brahmin to find the killer — the search leads him to the bowels of a plot so vast that it could demolish the kingdom itself. The spymaster finds the secrets in the obvious, the words lost in the silence. He hunts for the truth not in the magnificent edifices of Pataliputra but in the dark simulacrum of its moat. He plunders the shadows to allow light in so he can seize the truth that eyes and ears will not reveal. As one road ends, another fork appears. As murders, machinations and matters keep unfolding, the city retains its immutable character while its contours keep changing from moment to moment. The spectre of war against Kalinga looms. The stakes are high for both Magadha and Kalinga, and there are multiple plots brewing.

Filled with reinvented legends, rich historical details and sharp pithy dialogue, the Brahmin is like a giant spider who weaves the web of death for the kingdom’s enemies from the strands of fast-paced events. I wouldn’t say more due the fear of telling more than the subjective preview a review is meant to be.

It is obvious Etteth has carried out a stupendous amount of research to apply a variety of details to the customs and geography of the time. With Etteth, it is important to read each word carefully to discover what they are hiding. Often you get the unsettling feeling the writer himself is the Brahmin. This is a narrative that makes itself heard through the eyes. In that sense, Etteth is both the writer and the reader. A quick search of the reviews in the myriad book blogs that are today’s barometer for a work’s measure of success shows why Etteth’s books are commercially successful.

Beyond its lushness and controlled emotion, The Brahmin is a delight for the discerning reader.
No regrets.
No RSVP to the party.



Book review: The Brahmin by Ravi Shankar Etteth
The killing game
A fast-paced thoroughly entertaining read that mixes up some history, some espionage and some gory stuff.

by Sheila Kumar
Ravi Shankar Etteth is back with his fifth book and this one The Brahmin (Westland Books) is a spy thriller. Not your routine spy thriller, though; this story is set in the times of Ashoka ruler of Pataliputra — not yet emperor, not yet a renunciate of violence. This Ashoka is very much a warrior king, unprepossessing, cold, cruel, rapier-sharp and distrustful of everyone around him. If he trusts anyone just a wee bit, it is his spymaster the Brahmin.
And the latter is the hero of the book, this nameless Brahmin soldier/spy quite in the mould of his predecessor Chanakya who was Ashoka`s grandfather Chandragupta Maurya`s master strategist, confidante and right- hand man. The Brahmin and the king go back a long way; he has fought alongside Ashoka in the battle of Taxila, and saved the king`s life besides.
Now they are in Pataliputra and the clouds of war, specifically the soon- to- be- waged Kalinga War, are gathering on the horizon. One of the king`s concubines is murdered in a grisly manner and Ashoka wants the Brahmin to investigate, to plug the possible chinks in his well-guarded but perhaps vulnerable set-up.
That leads the spymaster down labyrinths of dangerous stratagems, devious plots and treachery, as also the presence of a deadly killer called the Blood Flower who of course leaves a calling card, the blood red kovidara blossom after every killing. It also leads the Brahmin, his king and everyone else connected with the story, to the ultimate lethal weapon called the Golden Scythe, dating back to when Ravana battled Rama. Yes, you read that right.
The protagonists of the tale are Ashoka, his wife Asandhimitra, the Brahmin, his assistant the comely Viet woman called Hao, the prime minister Radhagupta, Kalinga`s slimy envoy Suma, the mysterious siren Mur. And Buddhism, which is slowly spreading across this conflicted land, plays a vital role in the unfolding of the tale.Even as the pace quickens, Etteth studs his story with captivating little details, at other times paints pleasing pictures on the page. We are told Ashoka`s quarters were made of sandalwood from the deep southern forests; their fragrance soothed the king as he slept, aroused him when he made love and calmed him when he was in one of his spectacular rages. Queen Asandhimitra has a Greek woman in waiting, prefers to have Hellenic furniture in her Ujjain palace, sips Rhodes wine and wears a chiton for official functions. Ashoka`s guards still have some Macedonian warriors amongst them.

It`s all very descriptive, as is Etteth`s wont. A dying soldier is still trying to put up the good fight but with each movement, pain squeezes his body with the fierceness of a betrayed lover. Elsewhere, the Brahmin gazes at a sullen sky heavy with black rainclouds where a feeble sun was trying to spin some copper into them but was losing the fight. The night becomes a dark cowl closing over the land; a watcher on a distant balcony smiled as a single kovidara descends slowly on the grass like the echo of an unforgiving curse. The night laps around Ujjain like a shape-shifter kept at bay by the spell of a powerful magus, the sharp wind abseils down the ridges from the mountain spurs, riding the flanks of the heavily wooded slopes with the force of an invading army.

On the whole, however, the brush strokes are wide across the canvas. The heroes are all lithe and lethal. The villains are all patently wicked, possessed of sly cunning and overt malevolence. This is pure unadulterated entertainment. There is a passage full of dexterous wordplay where the Brahmin and his team take on a fierce posse of women dressed in black and wielding raised swords, the elite guard of neighbouring Kalinga. The finale is a real beaut, too, quite catching the reader quite by surprise.

Pick up The Brahmin, it`s worth your while.



The Brahmin/by Ravi Shankar Etteth/Westland Books/247 pages/Rs 350.