Book: Indicting Goliath
Author: Lal Bhatia
Publisher: Notion Press
Year: 2018
Pages: 278
Genre: Autobiographical
BookWorm Rating: 4/5

Part A of the book is a little background or surfacing that is very necessary to understand how the game started. Once you understand the multi-billion dollar game of the BCCI, Bank of Credit and Commerce International, you are taken to the part B of the book and you come to know Lal Bhatia. And once you know Lal Bhatia, you also know a certain person named Wig who played a dirty game with him (that you will know later in the book).

“Knowing I did not have an understanding of U.S. laws of litigation, Wig assured that he would protect me, and therefore it was in my best interest to follow his instructions.”

And this is how Lal came into the trap of this certain fellow WIg who enjoys (and continues to do so) a great ‘connection’ within the FBI and the Department of Justice, the USA. This is the thing which happened during the year-end, 2001. And what we are reading is the saga of a person who suffered a lot, almost more than a decade, but did not lose his faith in himself and fought against the system all alone. Lal Bhatia, therefore, represents the David himself and he has tried to indict the Goliath by this publication of his autobiography – Indicting Goliath!

Names and Surnames like Wig, Kriplani, Bhatia, and some native American names will keep coming in the book because these are some characters around whom the story (real-life story) revolves. Lal Bhatia, in this book, tries to establish that he was tried and persecuted only on the basis of a false accusation that his own employer has put against him just to secure financial gains. As a reader, I also came across a number of citations which find their reference in the lawsuits and the judgment copies signed by the authorities of the Department of Justice and actually go on proving that not only Wig but also the judges and the FBI people were responsible for the measurable condition in which Lal had to spend his life – torture, punishment, abduction of basic human rights… and what not!

Indicting Goliath raises many questions in front of the USA now. How could a person be denied justice? How could the law enforcement and the justice department dignitaries forego what a responsible citizen tried to hint – a billion dollar money laundering scam? How could everything (the entire game) continue without any hindrance for so long? And if Lal Bhatia was innocent which he always claimed, how could the authorities let him free accepting all his testimonies and reasserting that he was indicted? Questions are there; serious questions are there and all on the basis of countersigned documents and proofs and the USA certainly needs to answer these now…

Looking at it objectively, Lal Bhatia’s Indicting Goliath is all about a story first lived and then told. He has unfolded the events and the period of life in front of the readers with a little history of the fraud he tried to expose. The readers who are interested in reading autobiographies with a twist will certainly like the book. The language is plain and the first-person narrative further adds a conversation touch to the book which is actually nice. You can get a copy of the book from the link below (Amazon India):

Buy Lal’s book – Amazon India – Click Here

review by Avinash for BookWorm Reviews