Plot Summary
Q & A is an Indian rag to riches story. It is the story of an orphan whose life experiences makes him a winner on India’s Quiz TV show “Who will win a Billion?”. At the beginning of the novel Ram Mohamed Thomas the protagonist is arrested late in the night for interrogation. The studio management wants the police to investigate and prove that he cheated so that they can cheat him of his prize money.
As he is being tortured a young woman rushes in and claims to be his lawyer. She makes police stop the torture and asks him how he knew the answers. This leads to a narration of his unique life experiences from Mumbai to Delhi, Agra and back to Mumbai. Ram's life experiences leave the reader eagerly turning the pages of the novel.
Ram Mohammed Thomas
Ram is a feisty young man who has lived in an orphanage, a church compound, the Mumbai slums, and in a diplomat’s house. He is a smooth talking con-artist tourist guide as well as a hard-working man. Exploited by a gangster he is also the protector of the weak.
Abandoned as a baby he grows up in the orphanage until adopted by an Indian Christian couple. The couple split and he is left in the care of the parish priest. Other religious leaders are not comfortable with an orphan growing up in a church and identified as a Christian. They decide to give him a Hindu, a Muslim and a Christian name. As Ram says he was lucky that the Sikh leader was not present at that meeting where he was given a name.
Additional Characters
In addition to Ram, the other characters in the novel also have interesting life experiences. Salim his friend from the orphanage, a dabbawalla who aspires to be an actor; Nita his girlfriend, a prostitute who falls in love; Gudiya an helpless girl who claims Ram as her brother and is lost to him when he runs away from Mumbai and later enters his life again as the lawyer who defends him; Neelima the aging heroine; Lajwanti the perfect maid who cannot resist cleaning up even when stealing are all memorable characters.
Bollywood Masala
The protagonist's name reminds one of Bollywood movies like Amar Akbar Antony and themes of friendship between characters belonging to different religions in various movies. His experience as a tourist guide is reminiscent of an older blockbuster movie - The Guide based on a novel by a famous Indian novelist R.K.Narayan. Salim's hero worship of Arman Ali reveals the ever-present popularity of Bollywood movies which this novel resembles. The novelist weaves 12 experiences or Bollywood like stories into one novel with efficient artistry. The fast pace of the novel leaves the reader breathless and enchanted.
The Movie — Slumdog Millionaire
It seems appropriate that the novel which resembles a fast pace movie was turned into a movie. The Oscar award winning movie, Slumdog Millionaire, takes the basic plot of the novel and focuses on three characters (Ram, Salim and Nita) and enlarges the romance angle. Ram Mohammed Thomas becomes Jamal in the movie. The personalities of the three characters are also different. From questions and answers about an orphan’s life experiences the movie centers on rags to riches story of a slum boy whose mother is killed in Hindu-Muslim riots.
Vikas Swarup
Q & A was Vikas Swarup’s first novel. A career diplomat, he has written two novels so far. Q & A and Six Suspects. Visit Vikas Swarup's website for book reviews, interviews and biography. With these novels, Vikas Swarup joins other writers from India who write in English. This genre of writing is variously referred to as Indian Literature in English, Indian English Literarure, and South Asian Literature.
Publisher: Scribner (July 26, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743267478
ISBN-13: 978-0743267472
