I picked up State Vs Amrit Kumar by Govind Sharma thinking it would be a courtroom thriller as the title and the jacket of the book indicates. Courtroom thrillers excites me. One of the reason why I just love reading The Lincoln Lawyer series of Micheal Connelly. 

But alas title and jacket of the book deceived me. There was no in court arguments or counter arguments, no witnesses or cross examinations, no prosecution vs defense, no witty questions or nervous answers,  no State vs Amrit. In fact there was no courtroom scene in the entire story.

Why the author named the book State vs Amrit Kumar when more than half of the story was not about Amrit but about his parents and a few college mates. A couple of college friends conspired against Amrit’s parents which resulted in destroying the blissful family life of Amrit.  

The author seems to have this misconception that the people who visits temples, go to satsang, religious god fearing people are good human being. Is it so. Such people many a times back stabs their near and dear ones. Religious or not religious doesn’t guarantee the nature of human being otherwise we wouldn’t have impersonator in saffron clothes.

The story is a mere narrative or rather say a running commentary of a bunch of college graduated students and their aftermath life. Amrit’s story comes much later. And ends equally fast as well. A seasoned author could have carve out a great thriller story out of this plot. I seriously felt that there should have been one courtroom scene at the end and Amrit getting released after some great witty arguments by the defense lawyer. It could have been a thrilling end to otherwise a dud novel.

The Verdict: Reading the book was like reading the script of some bollywood movie which has hero, heroine, villain, drama and treachery and happy ending. Every bollywood masala. I think Chetan Bhagat does a better job in writing bollywood script novels.