Sneak Peeks

Cripplingly funny. Orwellian. Biting social satire. These are some of the words reviewers have used in describing The Book of Answers. If you want to get a free taste of the book, you could download free chapters from Apple’s iBookstore and Smashwords, where e-versions of the book are now available. Or you could download some of my favorite sections of the book and see if you like them too.

A tax on sex: Claiming that idea came from God through The Book of Answers, Ishwar Prasad, Indian’s diabolical leader, legislates a tax on sexual intercourse, saying that there is no better to boost treasury reserves in such a populous country. But the new law is used to harass Patros and Rose, the protagonists of the story. Read about it here — A tax on sex

The Ministry of Regrets: The government of India sets up a ministry to apologize for the government’s many mistakes, and also to propose new mistakes worth committing. Read more here — Ministry of Regrets

The Guidelines for Positive Speech: With elections coming up, the government enacts the Guidelines for Positive Speech, claiming the idea came from The Book of Answers. The Guidelines forbid use of the past tense or the future tense, to prevent discussions of what went wrong and what the future should be like. Read more here —  Guidelines for Positive Speech

The Matter with Rose: At the launch event in new Delhi on July 5, 2011, Mani Shankar Aiyar, ex-politician and veteran truth-teller, waxed eloquent about the literary quality of The Book of Answers and read out two paragraphs that had impressed him. The paragraphs describe the environment of Mumbai’s largest sex district, Kamathipura, where Rose runs a shelter. You can see this shaky-camera video of what Mani Shankar Aiyar said here, and download the paragraphs he read out by clicking this link — The matter with Rose