Q & A (novel)
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| Q & A | |
|---|---|
 Book cover of Black Swan edition published 2006 |
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| Author | Vikas Swarup |
| Translator | 7639 |
| Country | India |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publication date | 2005, 2006 |
| Pages | 361 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7432-6747-8 |
| OCLC Number | 57564932 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.6 22 |
| LC Classification | PR9499.4.S93 Q13 2005 |
Q & A is a novel by Vikas Swarup, an Indian diplomat. Published in 2005, it was the author's first novel. Set in India, it tells the story of Ram Mohammad Thomas, a poor young waiter who becomes the biggest quiz-show winner in history, only to be sent to jail on accusations (but with no evidence) that he cheated. The book was adapted into the famous multiple Oscar winning movie, Slumdog Millionaire.
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[edit] Plot
Narrated in the first person, the novel follows the life of Ram Thomas, an orphaned, uneducated young waiter. Prior to the start of the novel, Ram has correctly answered 12 questions on the fictional game show Who Will Win a Billion? and has won a billion rupees (about $22 million). However, show host Prem Kumar and the producers, who do not have the money to pay him, have had him arrested for cheating by the police; they had cast Ram because they figured an uneducated street lad would not be able to answer more than a few questions at most, and they find the police more than willing to believe them. Ram explains to his sympathetic lawyer, Smita Shah, just how he managed to answer twelve random questions, because they related to real events that occurred in his life, with each question prompting its own flashback. As he says, "Well, wasn't I lucky they only asked those questions to which I knew the answers?"
Ram goes on to tell her how, by drawing from the experiences of his own short, yet turbulent and sometimes cruel life, he, a poor, young waiter, answered the twelve questions that led him to the jackpot. Through this device, the novel moves between Mumbai, Delhi and Agra (non-chronologically) as it highlights Ram's bizarre experiences, from his original upbringing by an English-speaking priest to his various jobs, which include working as house help for an aging Bollywood actress, in a foundry, an Australian diplomat who turns out to be in a spy ring, as a tourist guide in Agra and a waiter in a bar at Mumbai. His best friend is another young orphan named Salim, who plays a part in some of these adventures and dreams of becoming an actor, as it was foretold by a palmist at a fair. Ram was told by the same palmist that he would not live a very long life, but he doesn't believe in foretelling the future and dismisses it. Salim later becomes an actor after saving a Bollywood producer from assassination from a professional hitman However, the key events of his life came when he worked as a tour guide at the Taj Mahal, which is when he met a young prostitute named Nita. He falls in love with her and asks her pimp to let her marry him. The pimp refuses. Meanwhile Ram's friends Shankar is dying of rabies. He needs four hundred thousand rupees to buy a vaccination and Nita's pimp requests the same amount. Shankar dies and Ram steals the money from his uncaring mother. After finding the pimp (who is also Nita's brother) will continue to request even more money, he gives it to an English teacher whose son needs the vaccine from rabies. He later answers Ram's question about Shakespeare when Ram uses his Friendly Tip Lifeboat.
Ram tells his lawyer that he went on the show partly in a quest to win enough money to buy Nita's freedom from her pimp and partly in a bid to get even with the show's host, Prem Kumar, who abused and exploited Nita, resulted in her being placed under intensive care, in a hospital. He also exploited Neelima Kumari, Ram's former employer. Ram planned to kill him when he went for a bathroom break (show rules dictate that the contestant must be followed everywhere by the host so they cannot cheat). However, Ram decides against it and, in gratitude, Kumar tells him the answer of the last question, which was the only answer he might have not gotten.
[edit] Inspirations
The author has said that he was inspired by the Hole in the Wall project which installed a computer in a Delhi slum. Young children taught themselves about the use of computers without intervention from the experimenters.[1]
Another inspiration for Swarup was the cheating scandal involving Major Charles Ingram after he had won the top prize on the U.K. version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? "If a British army major can be accused of cheating, then an ignorant tiffin boy from the world's biggest slum can definitely be accused of cheating," said Swarup.[2]
[edit] Reception
Q & A won South Africa's Boeke Prize 2006.[3] It was also shortlisted for the Best First Book by the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and won the Prix Grand Public at the 2007 Paris Book Fair.
To date, the book has sold translation rights in 40 languages, including French, German, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Slovenian, Greek, Croatian, Turkish, Spanish, Icelandic, Chinese, Polish, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbian, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Sinhala, Indonesian, Thai, Japanese and Hebrew (both as The Riddle Boy from Mumbai), and Portuguese.
[edit] Controversy
The book has been accused of homophobia given that it has two gay characters in the book, both of them child molesters.[citation needed] When one of them, a film star, is given the "brush of homosexuality" by a film magazine, Ram (the narrator) asserts, "I, too, know of perverts and what they do to unsuspecting boys. In dark halls. In public toilets. In municipal gardens. In juvenile homes." Swarup has explained in various interviews that the book is not homophobic and the issue he was getting at was exploitation of the weak by the strong.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Thinking Allowed, "Hole in the ball", BBC Radio 4, January 21, 2009
- ^ Stuart Jeffries (16 January 2009). "'I'm the luckiest novelist in the world'". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/16/danny-boyle-india. Retrieved 2009-01-20.
- ^ It's quiz time, folks!
