The Silk Route Spy is an absorbing tale of a young man employed by the British as a spy who in the process develops a soft spot for the revolutionaries of the Indian freedom movement and secretly lives a life of a double agent.
The book serves as a tribute to the life of Nandlal Kapur as seen from the eyes of the author Enakshi Sengupta, his granddaughter-in-law. The opening lines set the stage for what is to follow with grace and pride.
“Every child has a hero; someone they would like to emulate. My husband Vijay Kapur’s hero was his grandfather, Nandlal Kapur.” Written like a fictional tale, the book does qualify as a biography.
The story opens in Ferozpur (Punjab) in the 1920s with Nandu (Nandlal Kapur) aspiring to shoulder the responsibility of being the eldest son in a family of meager earnings. Nandu lands himself a secret job with the British Government to spy on some young freedom revolutionaries. As time passes by, his assignments grow bigger, rewarding him with ample money to support his family at the cost of leaving Ferozpur and his family behind. His internal conflict surfaces for the first time when his information causes the arrest of a group of young revolutionaries building grenades. As Nandu’s career leaps, his heart also nestles the desire to help the Indian revolutionaries in creating a free India. Torn between these two extremes Nandu travels to places like Amritsar, Calcutta, Rangoon, Kobe. And with every city and country his training and role as an agent intensifies. When things fall apart many years later, he finally returns to his homeland Punjab, with his wife and children.
The reader is charmed by the author’s vivid descriptions of the pre-independence era Punjab, the emotions that the young revolutionaries of India’s freedom movement cradled in their hearts, and many unknown aspects of the freedom movement that may not have featured in our history books. All this without sounding morbid, and boring.
Nandu’s dilemma on being a double agent, the deep emotional turmoil his heart goes through of leaving his parents behind to earn extra bucks, and the trauma of heartbreak have all been written with finesse and a lot of heart.
The story is fast-paced and at various plot points gives rise to a pressing need for more information and detailing of Nandu’s journey. The chapters based on Ferozpur, Amritsar, Calcutta at the start of the book develop enough intrigue in the reader’s mind which sadly loses its charm as the second half of the book takes over. One moment Nandu is in Rangoon, the next in Shanghai, and then Kobe. The characters of Vimla, Lily, and Aiko did add value to the story but felt undercooked. As a reader I felt Aiko’s part should have been laid out like the balm on Nandu’s wounds post the immense pain Vimla and Lily’s characters left him with.
The book however, does give the reader a concise and crisp snippet of the most testing and tense time of Indian history, and it does force the reader to ponder over the fate and unsung glory of patriots like Nandlal who played a part in India’s freedom, secretly.
Overall, The Silk Route Spy by Enakshi Sengupta is an entertaining and engaging book.
This review is part of the Blogchatter Book Review Program.