First Impressions - Sacred Games

Got hold of Sacred Games, by Vikram Chandra yesterday. I’d been looking forward to this book after Red Earth & Pouring Rain, which I mean to read again sometime soon. It made sense to get it from Strand Bookstall, for as always they always have the best price. And thats how it happened, along with a couple of other books that I’d been meaning to get sometime.

First up, the hardcover is a brick of a book, perhaps even two bricks! At over 900-pages, its not a book that you could read comfortably in bed, the sheer weight makes it dig into any and every body part that you try to cradle it into.

And it bites into you right in the early pages, and takes a deep hold into you as you go on - about 200-pages into the reading, I’m finding it difficult to put down and find myself wondering about whether I’ll manage to complete it over the weekend - otherwise, I’m not going to be able to think of anything on Monday!

Though I’ve not seen the movie Aks, starring Manoj Bajpai and the Bachchan, that was the first thing that this book reminded me of. Perhaps I’ll get around to seeing Aks after reading this book, eh?

Thats it for the first impressions. More when I’m done. And here’s something from the back cover of the book:

‘Build it big or small, there’s no house that is safe. To win is to lose everything, and the game always wins.’ - Ganesh Gaitonde