The year is ending and luckily, I am getting to read more and more meaningful, sensible and still entertaining literature that can give me various emotions – happiness, sadness, laughter, amazement, the melancholy and pleasant breeze of unabridged thoughts towards various aspects of life. And the latest edition to this list is a wonderful, realistic, thoughtfully imagined and very interesting novel written by Amitava Chaudhuri, Acts of Sanctification. Rohit’s journey from a wrongly-ended relationship with Saanjh to a political prodigy is at the centre of the novel and everything else about life and politics and how our deeds come back to haunt us revolves around the same.

Acts of Sanctification, as the title of the novel suggests, is about one’s actions, the reactions (sooner or later) and possible ramifications of the same. Rohit, the central protagonist, becomes an overnight sensation after he slaps a local heavyweight MLA named Muraliji and he is quickly lapped by the rival party of Muraliji, the Satya Party. Satya Party’s mentor to Rohit, Marutibhai leads Rohit to his seed political ambitions and Rohit also seems to enjoy the phase – away from his regular job as an engineer and the usual daily chores. However, politics is not as easy as it seems from the outside. What we witness on TV shows and news channel debates is only one part of the story. There are many hidden purgatories that a political leader has to go through in order to reach somewhere at the top…

“… you, your personal life, and the lives of your entire clan of relatives and friends no longer remain private. It becomes public property. The common public and your opponents are then at liberty to play with it, to twist it, to manipulate it to their own advantage.”

This lesson by Marutibhai for Rohit is a universal lesson that everyone having political aspirations must remember. However, in this novel, the twist has been planned wonderfully by Amit Chaudhuri, the novelist. Acts of Sanctification might be hinting at the final blow that Rohit has to face in the course of his life. The chapters come fast as the novel progresses towards an open conclusion that would certainly give the readers a realistic view of everything.

The novel has a political rivalry, personal remorse and past, a realistic story, a wonderfully planned set of twists and everything together offers the reader a quality read that they will enjoy to the very end. The novel has been written in a simple language and it covers the aspects of life that will be close to people at large. Campus life, a normal family and social life, political dreams and actions, conspiracies, police, issues… things are kept at par with reality.

The only possible criticism that I can find scope for is the novel’s limited plot. It does not give space to more than 2-3 characters and, at times, the novel’s horizon seems too small. However, the novel is designed in such a way that it cannot accommodate more than 2-3 people to carry the acts. And therefore, after a few minutes into the book, a reader will not find it difficult to adjust to the plot and the timeline.

You can get a copy of the novel from Amazon India by clicking the link below:

Buy the novel – click here to get a copy from Amazon

Review by Ashish Mishra for BookWorm Reviews