A True Lie

Vinod Bhardwaj’s novel Seppuku was an expose of the contemporary Indian art world. A True Lie – a sequel of sorts to that novel – takes on the world of Indian journalism. On the one hand, it is the story of print journalism regressing from its Golden Age. It bears witness to the swift changes in old-world journalism in the age of colour TV, as brand managers become editors. On the other hand, there is the novel’s protagonist, Sudhir Chandra, who battles unsuccessfully with the memories and scares of childhood sexual abuse, and tries to navigate unsuccessfully through a maze of complex relationships with women. Like Schopenhauer, he feels that sometimes revenge can be sweet, only to realize at the end, the futility of such vengeance. This is a boundary-breaking novel from a seasoned journalist, and will appeal to a wide cross-section of readers.