Book Review-The Redeemers by Suresh Taneja

Title-The Redeemers

Author-Suresh Taneja

Publisher-Lead start /Frog books

Price-INR 145/-

Pages-229

‘The Redeemers’ is the second book by Chartered accountant turned author Suresh Taneja.His debut work,’We can Pull it off’ which came out a couple of years back,thoughgot noticed for it’s theme and it’s concept(the book also had some really cool thoughts  like ‘Corruption Density Index’ ) ,was let down by poor editing and too many grammatical errors.Thebook,targeted at young readers is infact a complete and improved version of ‘We can Pull it off’.

The Plot-Vikram,Yuvika,Manisha and Akshay are four teenage friends.One bizarre vacation marks a turning point in their lives.’The Redeemers’ is the inspirational story of the unique movement which changed their lives and the destiny of their country.

The writing-The English is pretty simple which is justified as the target reader of this book belongs to a very young age. The Redeemers unlike it’s predecessor doesn’t have  many grammatically incorrect sentences in it,but still there are a few ones here and there(though he had a promising future abroad but he chose to return home,chapter 3).Likewise,it would have been better had the author given English translations for the Hindi dialogues which appear often in the book.

The Characters-Though ‘The Redeemers’ retains most of the characters which were there in the original,the author has intelligently given a family tree of the main characters in the beginning so that the reader is not confused at any point of time.The protagonists are not only well etched out this time but also their actions are also more convincing and believable,this time. On the downside, all the principal characters have been portrayed asepitomes of all virtues that often gave me the feeling that I was watching a SoorajBharjatya movie minus Salman Khan!The characters are often referred to as G3/G4/G6 whichmight not go down well with a section of readers,but I believe,it was cool.

What I liked the most about this book-

1.The Hospital scene (Rohit and G4) and the scene involving the corrupt Policeman in the highway.

2.The book puts forward some really nice thoughts which might be of some help inthe process of uplifting our country from the pits of moral turpitude to which it has fallen into,of late.

3.The concept of Corruption Density Index(CDI)

4.Vibha Sharma,the editor has done a decent job as the editor of this book and one never gets the feeling that this is her first work as an editor.

 What I didn’t Like-

1.Though I totally agree with Taneja’s views and his good intentions,in a country like India where the vote bank-caste politics determines the scheme of things,most of his views/suggestions seem highly impractical.Some of the incidents which Taneja has described in his book took place during the previous  UPA (cash for vote scandal et al) regime and all of us know,how the vote bank-(caste and ‘minority’ appeasement) politics helped them to come to power again after the next elections.UPA 2 not only ensured dozens of Scandals,scams,corruption scandals during their rule but also made sure that the country’s economy hit the baseline.But I am pretty sure that the likes of MulayamsinghYadavs,Mayawatis and NitishKumars will gift us a UPA 3 when the country goes for a general election in 2014.

2.‘The Great Indian School’- Speech scene could have been shorter and written in a more imaginative manner.

Verdict-The Redeemers by Suresh Taneja is a well intentioned ,decently writtenbook.Thoughsomewhat preachy at times,this is one book which should be read by all young readers who genuinely wish to liberate the country from the clutches of corruption and malpractices that has become deeply ingrained in our culture. Rating-3.25/5

(The author is a C.A. by profession and is employed in a large listed company as it's chief financial officer.He can be contacted at taneja_suresh@hotmail.com.This is an author requested review)

-nikhimenon