Monday, January 21, 2013

Ashwin Sanghi's "The Rozabal Line"

Finished reading Ashwin Sanghi's thriller novel "The Rozabal Line." It's a confusing and pedantic novel that takes ideas from Brian Weiss's past life regression therapy, Jesus's time in India, Jesus's crucifixion as a ruse, Jesus's bloodline (a la The Da Vinci Code), worship of the mother goddess, cloak and dagger activities of Illuminati, Islamic terrorism (terrorists mirroring Jesus and his 12 disciples), 21 December 2012 folderal and many other things. There are many (underdeveloped) characters and (dangling) stories to keep track of. Not a fast-paced book as the writer switches to non-fiction time and again. His research for the novel is questionable as his primary source is Wikipedia. Uses anagrams and other subterfuges to build the ambience of mystery but doesn't manage to hold the attention. However, the basic intention of the novel seems to suggest that all religions are basically good even if some practitioners are evil. One can proclaim, however, that Hinduism as portrayed in the novel remains unsoiled by evil in comparison to Abrahamic religions.

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