• Title: The Powerful, The Powerless
  • Author: Shiva Dhuli
  • Book Type: Novel
  • Genre: Political, Fiction
  • Edition: Kindle eBook
  • Publisher: <independently published>
  • Year of Publication: 2021
  • Number of Pages: 335

- Blurb of the Book -

This story is set in a fictitious country where deceitful, Machiavellian politicians, who commit heinous crimes without batting an eyelid, pretend to be the guardians of the country, making a farce of democracy.

Bharat, the protagonist of the novel, is a humble young man from a lowly background who has big dreams. But his dreams go awry when his path in life crosses that of some such powerful and unscrupulous politicians. Does he have any chance to fight and triumph over them?

Young Bharat finds his life living in a small, far-flung town, in a community that fiercely holds on to all regressive ideas and beliefs, so far removed from what he imagines for himself.

Bharat dreams big, and when a crisis in his life threatens his dream he flees to a big city, hoping that he could lean on some arm of the government and the country and realize his dream one day.

But what his life in the big city – through his adolescence to adulthood – teaches him is shockingly different from what he had imagined and hoped for.

He finds the very guardians of the country turn his nemeses, and throw hurdles his way, at various points in his life.
Then he faces the biggest hurdle of his life, Kansakumar, the Chief Minister of the state, who wrongs the love of his life and makes his whole world turn topsy-turvy. Can he take on this challenge?

A poignant saga of the power of passion, hope, and agony

- Lady Bookamore's Views -

First and foremost, I want to thank the author for giving me an opportunity to review such an engrossing work of ficition.

Frankly speaking, The Powerful, The Powerless is one of the most straightforward stories by a budding Indian author I have ever read in recent times. It is a kind of a story that does not beat around the bush but goes straight to the point with a narrative that is gripping till the end. Unfortunately, some cliches prevail in the course of the novel.

The first reason why I liked reading The Powerful, The Powerless is its premise. Honestly, it is a fictional rendering of the current situation of our society. Although the story is more polarised than what we experience in reality (via news media et al), The Powerful, The Powerless has its own share of wonders. However, what piqued my interest the most was the narration. The author begins the story in one of the unlikeliest of settings for a political story to begin - a kidney transplant procedure. It is the absurdity of the storytelling technique that would compel you to read the entire novel at one go (although it's not an easy task!).

But, there were some p(l)otholes which surfaced and resurfaced in the course of the novel. First, the trope of the "small-town protagonist" has been exhausted in mainstream Bollywood cinema, as well as by a handful of budding Indian writers. This is followed by how the bureaucrats and politicians are shown in the shades of black only, with Bharat as the rebel with a cause. The problem with The Powerful, The Powerless was that the story did not have anything new to offer, besides the realistic depiction of the Indian political scenario. I think the story could have been much better if the entire plot was reconceived within a better setting and structure. I convey my best wishes to the author for his future endeavours.

Lady Bookamore rates this book 3/5

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