It is just a coincidence that recently I read two similar books on India - Pakistan. I read passionately Rock and Roll Jihad by Salman Ahmad, the founder of Junoon band. You may read same by clicking following link
Then I read about Malala through her book, I am Malala.
The common between these two books are both are autobiography and both are non fiction. Another similarity is both of these books tell about passion of two people- one is passionate about music and another is passionate about education. In both the cases, the extremist and fundamentalist attempt all efforts to stop them. The books tell how extremists control politics and political decision of Pakistan and both Salman Ahmad and Malala fight them through these books and disapprove them.
Then, the third book I read without knowing its content- Resonance. This book came to me and when I started to read it, I could not stop it. The difference between the above two books and this book is- in the earlier case, both the authors are Pakistanis and author of Resonance is an Indian, Ajay Pande. Ajay Pande is an Indian Revenue Service Officer and has prior experience in IB, Indian embassy abroad and has worked in several assignments.
Resonance: Ajay Pandey
About Ajay:
An engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, he has worked with NTPC as an engineer and currently he is working as additional commissioner of Income Tax, Mumbai.
The book sometime confuse whether it is a fiction or a real life story.
The books talk about a Pakistani patriot Imran Shah Malik who loves his country and even does not want to let Al Qaeda or LeT control the country. It shows Pakistani Government in a positive side. It has many incidents which is masterpiece of creativity and imagination. It is perfectly blended with the real incident of Mumbai Terrorist attacks of 26/11 2008. When you flip through the pages, the author mention it with all the real characters including Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamte, Ajmal Kasab, Hafeez Saeed and so on. If you read I am malala, it also tells about modus operandi of LeT who pretends that they are a charitable organisation in the day, gain people's sympathy and provokes against India and you can read the same about it here.
Actually, this book has two protagonist, both love their respective country and they are true patriot. Siddharth Rana from India and Imran Shah Malik who loves Pakistan. For both of them, their country is everything. Both of them fight with enemy within.
Love does not know border
The book is also about love of one Pakistani Ayan and an Indian Juhi Shergil who study at Cornell in the USA and love each other.Somebody told me, when out of India, Indian and Pakistanis are best friends. I wish Pakistan could also have an open border access to India and we could stay as brethren forever.
Looks like a James Bond Movie
Mention of high end gadgets, encrypted phone, using of bugs, tracking each other gives you feeling of a James Bond Movie and create lot of excitement. The every chapter says- what next?
No negative point
The best thing is, Ajay has behaved as a matured writer and did not attempt to encash India Pakistan hatred and the war. He has well explained that traitor can be from any country and it has nothing to do with the nationality. It is more about greed. Greed for money and greed for power.
Good knowledge of border, nationality, India and strategic relationship
The book throws good light on The US, India, Pakistan Nepal and other countries. It also tell about the condition of Pakistanis in UK and how it how the terrorist group is exploiting this.
Free from vulgarity and uniformity in culture
Today when we see the every "young" author try to sell some kind of soft porn or take help of the sex matter (as it seems that they want to tell that youth are inevitable without sex), Ajay completely do away with it. Yes, this book contains several scenes including call girls in the Yacht at Dubai, love between Aban and Juhi Shergil, set of the USA and Cornell and so on. However, he has not even a single sentence used related to sex (possibly few spiced up sex scene would have helped to sell more books), instead he has tried to show good things like how Hindu visit Ajmer shariff, How terrorist organisation like LeT trains it terrorists, how a Hindi behaves and how a Muslim visit Pushkar and a muslim shows faith in Hindu Mythology/ Ajay shows his rich knowledge of Indian mythology and Indian sub continent culture.
Tremendous knowledge
Whether you want to know about how intelligence agencies work, how the terrorist outfit works, what is the culture of India, Pakistan and sub continent, it has all the knowledge. I always used to wonder- an Indian cannot get visa to entry to Pakistan but a Nepalese has 1 month's no fee visa access to Pakistan and vice versa which is sad. There is no mechanism to check one's nationality at Indo Nepal border. I had raised this question long back at
http://simplygovind.blogspot.in/2012/08/india-open-border-with-nepal-is-it.html
Even Ajay has pointed out the same thing in the Resonance
Free from vulgarity and uniformity in culture
Today when we see the every "young" author try to sell some kind of soft porn or take help of the sex matter (as it seems that they want to tell that youth are inevitable without sex), Ajay completely do away with it. Yes, this book contains several scenes including call girls in the Yacht at Dubai, love between Aban and Juhi Shergil, set of the USA and Cornell and so on. However, he has not even a single sentence used related to sex (possibly few spiced up sex scene would have helped to sell more books), instead he has tried to show good things like how Hindu visit Ajmer shariff, How terrorist organisation like LeT trains it terrorists, how a Hindi behaves and how a Muslim visit Pushkar and a muslim shows faith in Hindu Mythology/ Ajay shows his rich knowledge of Indian mythology and Indian sub continent culture.
Tremendous knowledge
Whether you want to know about how intelligence agencies work, how the terrorist outfit works, what is the culture of India, Pakistan and sub continent, it has all the knowledge. I always used to wonder- an Indian cannot get visa to entry to Pakistan but a Nepalese has 1 month's no fee visa access to Pakistan and vice versa which is sad. There is no mechanism to check one's nationality at Indo Nepal border. I had raised this question long back at
http://simplygovind.blogspot.in/2012/08/india-open-border-with-nepal-is-it.html
Even Ajay has pointed out the same thing in the Resonance
Ratings:
8/10 for creativity
7/10 for content
7/10 for clarity and language (people may not take interest in too much technical details but I loved it)
Cost of the book:
MRP: Rs. 350 however you may get at lower price
Recommended:
Yes
Greetings sir, I too picked up this book recently and it was truly a wonderful book. Do you have any suggestions of similar books of the same genre?
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