The Ekkos Clan - The KGP connection

“The Ekkos Clan” is my first novel. It’s a mystery novel, set against the backdrop of ancient Indian history. I’ve been an avid fan of Indiana Jones since long. Perhaps the first Indi adventure I saw was The Last Crusade, shown in Netaji. Amidst the uproar of Tarapada, Sean Connery emerged suddenly, giving a grown up Indiana Jones some important fundaes about how to handle girls. Indi, of course, didn’t listen to his father and the outcome was disastrous. Since then I’ve seen all the Indiana Jones movies and I was always intrigued how some controversial aspects of Christianity were so well used to create a thriller. Later came Robert Langdon and I was again intrigued. Perhaps that was the seed thought behind my book. I felt the ancient Indian history has loads of things that are so old and mysterious that neither they can be proved nor disproved. Many things are just left to interpretations and that’s what makes them  ideal for authors like me, who want to use them in a fiction.

It’s a contemporary mystery, which begins in the 90s when Kratu suddenly discovers that his grandmother’s bed-time tales are actually not mere fables or stories, that each of them is like a riddle that’s connected to the many thousand years old history of our country and civilization. At the same time he also finds out that all the unnatural deaths that have raked their family for the past hundred years are actually murders – some fanatic group has been constantly trying to kill his family, rather the stories in their family, which if come out, may change the way the origin of our civilization and culture is generally looked at.

I wanted to set the novel partially in KGP. All my protagonists are young and identifying them with KGP, and more with the four years I’ve spent there, would have made my life simpler, as I wouldn’t have to imagine many things. But then, lately there have been lot of IIT stories and I didn’t want to be perceived as another IITian turned author writing on IIT. But anyone who reads my book would get the flavour of KGP in many characters. It’s so easy for me to create a life that’s full of fun and frolic, but still rooted in traditions, customs, because that’s what the KGP life was, and I’m sure, is now too.

My yearning to make KGP a part of my book is so strong that I’ve already planned to write a KGP trilogy, a set of three unusual love stories, all originating in KGP. I’ve already completed an initial draft of the first book of this trilogy. I’ve named it Prembajar. This one would be my second novel. I even have the plot ideas for the second and third books in the KGP trilogy, though they make take some time to write. KGP to me is like a miniature world, everything compressed and contracted within the confines of the walls that enclose the campus. The engineering aspect is just like a passing thought, nothing that can profile this fabulous place into. My attempt in writing the KGP trilogy is just a humble effort to talk about this world, of which, it was my privilege to be a part.