Time is a Fire by Vikram Kapoor Review

The first thing I did after finishing the novel Time Is A Fire by Vikram Kapoor was to do some goggling about Operation Blue Star and Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Why I was searching about these fateful and bloodstain mishaps of our Indian history was because the novel has been written in the backdrop of these untoward incidences. I need to brush my memory to know exactly how much facts were woven into the storyline.

Story in Brief

But first something about the story. The novel is about Amrita Gill, whose parents were murdered in 1984 riots, right after Indira Gandhi’s assassination. That day Amrita also died with her parents only her physical body was still alive. She went to Seattle to live with her Uncle. 

One day she receives a letter from a stranger which completely changes her life. It opens Pandora box. Many truths come tumbling out of it. The past from which she had been running away all this time was asking for redemption and acceptance.

Some Clever Writing

I must say that it is a very smart and cleverly written novel. The author has deftly used the unfortunate events of 1984 in his storyline and from those events he has extracted a suspense novel which was not so easy to put down. Only a well seasoned author can pull it off and Vikram Kapoor seems to do it with ease.

With the facts like Beant Singh, Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh were responsible to assassin the then prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, the author has added his imagination and some fictional characters to carve out the entire episode and from that the author has deprived a suspense thriller. I was spellbound by the author’s knack to spot potential stories and to execute it so convincingly.

The author quite aptly captured the entire atmosphere and scenario of Delhi before and after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The wounds which riots gave to the surviving members of the family could never be healed. Amrita, Jaswant and Deepak somehow remain alive, but they saw their beloved family getting brutally killed. They were scarred for the rest of their life.

But once the cat was out of the bag the story becomes fairly predictable. In spite of that it was actually interesting to see all the jigsaw puzzle falling into the place from the character’s eyes.

The Verdict

I was very sad after finishing the book thinking about all the victims of 1984 riots; was there any possibility to avert the assassination of the Prime Minister; what purpose the assassination served, it led to more killings.

But, I enjoyed reading Time Is A Fire.