With spirituality, nuclear science and espionage, A Sassy Nation is a versatile read. While still a budding democracy, India once witnessed a concatenation of events that shook the nascent nuclear scientific community to its core. Through a fictional narration, Rajan Arora's 'A Sassy Nation' (A clever wordplay of term 'assassination') is an unputdownable political thriller retelling the chronicle of assassinations carried out while a much-anticipated faceoff of spiritual Guru and American scientist played out in New York's Madison Square.
INTRICATE PLOT TO ENDANGER INDIA'S NUCLEAR PLAN With multiple storylines containing a myriad of characters, the book is like a riveting jig-saw puzzle. With each chapter, pieces fall into place, and one can finally perceive a bigger picture- a convoluted plan carried out by India's green-eyed neighbors to hamper national security. A chain reaction gets initiated with the disappearance and murder of a famous nuclear scientist, followed by other Indian scientists becoming scapegoats to a malicious plot that drags a senior agent into the labyrinth and puts the credibility of US intelligence into question.
AGE-OLD DISCOURSE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY 'The knowledge of our times may be summed up in the proposition that our knowledge now exceeds our capability to use it for good. The solution is not to reduce our knowledge or to halt the progress of science but to make our moral stamina equal to it. We have now reached a point where the bad character or even the momentary carelessness of humans may lead to its extermination by the tremendous discoveries which the human intellect has achieved. The problem of preserving our civilization is a moral problem. Our difficulty is not to get more knowledge or more goods, but to do the right thing when we get them. Today we are confident that every scientific question will, in time, be answered. We know that every material deficiency of mankind can be made good. The problem is obtaining goodwill.'
With such revelatory arguments, the book prepares us for the fundamental dilemma of 'Science versus Religion'; however, the latter is morphed into spirituality this time around. "True spirituality lies in appreciating the glimpse of the possibility and moving on to work in the direction at your own pace and, as said, on your own different journey." Through a heated debate between an Indian spiritual saint, Guru G and a hotshot American nuclear scientist, Jack Hopkins, the story breaks out. With bold and compelling arguments from both sides, one can't help introspecting the essence of a soul and how science serves our individual' pursuits of happyness'. Backed with hardened facts, this enlightening conversation muddles with our preexisting perception of humankind, leaving us with many unanswered questions.
Compelling us to join the scattered dots, this is an enthralling account of the many challenges that befell Indian politics and the gluttonous individuals steering the narration.
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