Welcome to the real world

Mainak Dhar says he wanted to explore what happens when a generation used to Facebook activism has to take charge without technological crutches

August 27, 2016 05:53 pm | Updated August 28, 2016 07:55 pm IST - Bangalore

Mainak Dhar

Mainak Dhar

Mainak Dhar has taken a break from zombies. In his latest thriller, 03:02 (Westland Rs. 295) the villains of the piece are IS militants. “I wanted to build off something that is a real horror and insert it into our normal lives,” says Mainak over the phone from Mumbai.

The book tells the story of Aaditya who after eight years of excel sheets and investment advice has got a longed-for promotion and is all set to conquer greater heights in the corporate world when at 03:02 on a Sunday morning, the world turns dark, as if someone has turned off a master switch. All electrical appliances turn off. And when you think how much of our lives are chip-based — from cars and computers to pacemakers and money, you can imagine the havoc such a situation will create. “It is the continuation of a theme; of extreme situations and how normal people cope. On paper, or rather digitally we are connected but actually we are not. We need to get out of the bubble we live in.”

Describing the book as “a commentary,” the author of the bestselling Alice in Deadland series says: “A building society is a microcosm of India.” Choosing to call Aaditya’s apartment complex Hiranandani Gardens, Mainak says, “I live there and I wanted a real neighbourhood where you find a broad cross section of people both to build in the enhanced relevance and reality and also because I wanted something a bit away from central Mumbai to add to the isolation and not knowing what is happening in town.”

The reluctant hero is common thread that runs in Mainak’s novels and this one is no exception. “Rather than a Rambo or Bollywood hero, I naturally gravitate towards a normal person and how he would meet challenges.”

Expanding on the themes of the page-turner, Mainak says: “I wanted to explore what happens when a generation used to Facebook activism has to take charge in a real world without technological crutches, when their engagement has to go beyond liking or sharing something online… social media can be shallow and superficial. The book looks at personal accountability, how people have to take ownership.”

Mainak has lived abroad for “15 years and what I love about India is democracy. It is a wonderful asset to be able to express our opinions freely.” The novel opens with a quote from Nietzsche, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

Explaining his choice, Mainak says, “In the black, bleak landscape, despite all the horrors, Aaditya fights to retain his humanity, the values that make us human. I chose to set the climactic battle on Divali eve to celebrate light and the destruction of darkness.”

About a sequel, Mainak says: “I have not consciously thought about a sequel. It would have been glib to say all is well that ends well, that is why I kept the conclusion open-ended. Readers have been asking what happened next, what happened to Aaditya’s father… I believe in never say never.”

Locations play a huge part in Mainak’s work — Zombiestan was set in a Delhi overrun by zombies as were some books of the Alice in Deadland series. Mainak did school and undergrad in Delhi and went to IIM Ahmedabad. “I like to set my novels in places where I have lived,” says the 42-year- old author. “If you remember Chronicles of the Undead was set in a house on a hill in Gangtok. My uncle had a house there. Like Aaditya I live in Powai.”

Talking about the title Mainak says there are two reasons for it. “Three in the morning is when things happen. It is supposed to be the time when the Army plans attacks. The other reason is completely arbitrary. 03:02 has a nice ring to it!”

Insisting that, “This is the first novel that is being released when I am in India and I am very excited about it,” Mainak says, “I cannot stay away from writing. I have a bunch of conflicting priorities but I write half an hour a day. I run for an hour in the morning and that is when I think about the plot. I also get a lot of time to write when I am travelling on work.”

Mainak says he did a lot of research both at the “Macro and micro level. I read about electro-magnetic pulse and at the micro level, I studied building societies and how they function.”

While we can all recognise the troublesome Mr. Suri in our building societies, Mainak says the characters are not based on one particular person.

“They are composites of people I know. For instance, I borrowed my driver’s name for Mahadev, the resourceful auto driver, and the protagonist Aaditya is named after my son. The IIT kids are based on bright IITians I have met.”

The Mumbai-based author says he drew inspiration from his maternal grandfather. “He was a freedom fighter. That was a generation of ordinary people who fought the British and got us our freedom. He would tell stories. One of the voices in my head while I was writing was my grandfather’s.”

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