Chanakya's Chant by Ashwin Sanghi

The author of Chanakya’s Chant, Ashwin Sanghi has created two Chanakyas – the original one who lives in 340 BC, at the time of Alexander the Great’s invasion of India and his modern-day avatar who was born as Gangasagar 2,300 years later - just before India’s independence. Both men are kingmakers and unashamedly so.

The former wants to make Chandragupta Maurya the ruler of a united Bharat. The latter wants to make his protégée Chandini Gupta the Prime Minister of a strong India. Both Chanakya and Gangasagar are Brahmins from humble backgrounds, very shrewd and cunning manipulators who would stop at nothing to get what they want. We are told that Gangasagar was born in 1929 in Cawnpore, but, post India's independence, Sanghi takes away the reader’s grip on dates and we never get to know the year in which Chandini Gupta becomes Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and later Prime Minister of India.

Chanakya's chant is one of those books that take a lot of hard work and research to write. It's not easy to mix and match contemporary and ancient Indian politics but the author has done that superbly.

The shifts between present and past are nicely placed and the story has a good pace. The language is good and neither is it childish nor does it go overboard.

Sanghi does take a few liberties with history, especially when describing how events unfolded after Alexander the Great’s death. However, despite all that, one doesn’t get the feeling that Sanghi has mangled history,

The best thing about Chanakya’s Chant is that it manages to capture the reader’s interest and hold it till the end, which takes place on the 441st page. There are minor plots roughly every five pages and Sanghi switches between the past and the present with ease and fluidity. The plots are devious and interesting, but some of them are out of the world.

On the flip side, Chanakya and Gangasagar appear to have superhuman intelligence and cunning when compared to those around them. They both win every round and that too with ease. The people around them are made out to be either duffers or in awe of Chanakya and Gangasagar. This applies even to individuals like Chandragupta.

The ending comes with a surprise, one which wasn’t fully expected. I was hoping to see some action after Chandini Gupta becomes Prime Minister, something magical which she does with Gangasagar’s help, which would push India into the ranks of developed countries. Nothing of that sort happens, which makes me wonder if all that manipulation and puppetry was worth it. At least, the ancient Chanakya may legitimately claim that he unified India and gave it a strong ruler in the form of Chandragupta Maurya. There is nothing about Chandini Gupta which gives one the feeling that she is destined to be an exceptional prime minister.

Despite these various shortcomings, on balance, Chanakya's Chant is an eminently readable novel.

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