Bøger af V.J. James

Hendri, a coffin maker, has one goal in life: to see the dead body of his nemesis Satan Loppo being lowered into the coffin he has painstakingly carved. For it was Loppo who defiled his beloved Beatrice, and let loose his hellhound Hitler upon Hendri, giving him a permanent limp. From inside his coffin shop, Hendri watches the world go by even as he prepares to deliver justice upon Loppo. He is confronted by the son of his best friend becoming enamored with Loppo's wealth, Loppo's evil designs towards the hills of Aadi Nadu, and his own Christian guilt that regularly comes to haunt him. Then he meets Pundit, a 112-year-old watchmaker who was part of Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army and is building an 'Anti-Clock', which can turn back time. When Loppo too hears of the Anti-Clock and desires to possess it, the inevitable battle becomes a reality.

Is it possible for society to exist without religion? Nireeswaran, the most celebrated of Malayalam novelist V.J. James' works, uses incisive humour and satire to question blind faith and give an insight into what true spirituality is. Three atheists, Antony, Sahir, and Bhaskaran, embark on an elaborate prank to establish that God is nothing but a superstition. They instal a mutilated idol of Nireeswaran, literally anti-god, to show people how hollow their religion is. Their plan starts turning awry when miracles start being attributed to Nireeswaran-a man waking up from coma after twenty-four years, a jobless man ineligible for government employment getting a contract, a prostitute turning into a saint-leading hordes to turn up to worship the fake deity. The trio is put in a quandary. Will they fight their own creation? Is their intractable minds an indication that atheism is a religion in itself? Belief and disbelief, it is possible, are two sides of the same coin.