Democrazy – A political spoof by Atulya Mahajan. It has its roots in 2014 General Elections in India that gave birth to quite a few books. While most were a serious political analysis of the elections and its participants, this one takes a satirical look at the pre-election madness. And somehow brings out the futility of the same for the common man.
The author of Democrazy being a member of India’s glittering Twiteratti starts each chapter with tweets from different people on the chapter to come. In fact, a lot of times I felt the book owes a lot of its inspiration to the Twitter Junta. Atulya – Did you forget to mention that in acknowledgments? It is the worldview that you form when you consume too much of what is being fed to you from all kinds of media – media circus that is run by the political parties, the media circus that is run by the media outlets and the one that is generated by the self-proclaimed gurus on the social media. If you are a regular on Twitter, you would find many familiar characters from there and you would also see their relationship with this virtual community.
Democrazy is meant to be a spoof on the pre-election scene and it is almost like rewinding time to last year. If you have the electronic version of the book you need to ‘Find’ and ‘Replace’ the following in the narrative:
Badi Sarkar Sonia Gandhi
Chhote Sarkar Rahul Gandhi
The Great Leader Narendra Modi
Baba Neemacharya Replace it with Baba of your choice
Adarsh Bhartiya Atulya Mahajan – yes, that’s the author himself
Buddhiman Buddhiraja Arnab Goswami
Giani Seth Adani or Ambani or any other rich businessman
And many more such almost direct references….
The book made me think if there was a real effort involved in writing this book? Or he just thought of these new names for the lead characters of the story and wrote exactly what he saw. There are exaggerations, there are tangential extensions and there are fictional situations here and there. But most part remains quite real for anyone who has been a part of elections in 2014.
He even brings out his own relationship with his authoritarian mother and weaves a story around her. It seems, that may be the only fictional part but then I have no clue. It may as well be true also. The only part where he probably used his imagination is in the end. Which he presented in a very scrambled way – and it a bit different from reality. Although with Rahul Gandhi’s vanishing act after the elections lends a lot of credibility to the end as well.
Writing such a book needs courage and so does publishing it. It is not easy to play spoof on big names especially in the times when everyone gets offended at the drop of a hat. The cover design is really cool. I could not figure out the cover designer’s name. Whoever you are – I am applauding for you.
Read it if you are in a mood for some light-hearted reading. People active on Twitter would particularly enjoy this book.
You may buy this book – Democrazy A Political Spoof by Atulya Mahajan at Amazon.
the review takes a + ve dig at the gallop polls, opininon polls.
the titles imposed with no pun intended and highlighted by the reviewer restores the smile on the common harassed reader by the govt. and the self declared vips.
the thin line bifurcating fact and fiction is more visible by successive authors and well indicated by reviewers these days.
dr.karthik