The Unreal Elections By C.S.Krishna & Karthik Lakshman

          
Title-The Unreal Elections
Publisher-Penguin India
Year-2014
Genre-Satire/Humour
Pages-298
Price-250 INR

            Most of you must be aware of the existence of a political satire website called 'the unreal times'.(If you aren't,please visit the website at the earliest-believe me,it's awesomely awesome!)This election season those (brutally wicked)brains behind it have come up with yet another really amusing idea (or a set of ideas) called as 'the unreal elections'.(Well,you can't really call it a 'proper' literary piece of work because what the writers have actually done is penning down satirical backstories for the many political incidents that made headlines in run up to the General Elections of 2014).

           The book has different sections punctuated by Ravishastri cricket quotes and has almost all the 'real'(life) characters from the Great Indian Political Circus making an appearance in the narrative.The book opens with the intro of nautanki Kejriwal through a scene which is a hilarious take on the opening scene of the iconic 'The Godfather'.Very soon,we are introduced to the principal characters one by one- RaGa:the rich spoilt prince who can't even write a half-decent line without the aid of his Dad's longtime associates,the Gujarati Lion and his Liuetenant,the Former diplomat (Tharoor) who uses extremely complicated sentences to prove his point and the Diggie Rajas and the Shindes who are eternally loyal to the 'first family'.The narrative is peppered with funny Facebook posts(imaginary ones) and one on one conversations which are amusing at times.

          On the downside,towards the end I felt that the writers lost focus to an extend with the narrative becoming hazy and the jokes falling flat one after the other.There are also a couple of below the belt jokes which could have been done away with.Another issue I have with this book is it's length.At 298 pages,'the unreal elections' is overtly overlong by atleast a fifty pages and better editing could have made it tighter and less monotonous. 

Verdict-On the whole,'The Unreal Elections' is an okay read.I'm giving it a three out of five.

-nikhimenon