Saturday, June 21, 2014

Book Review: The Rozabal Line


Ashwin Sanghi is a good writer. Since he got great historical background, most of his works are related to history or the conspiracies. Few months back, I read his Chanakya’s Chant with a thrilling mood. It was a fusion of past and present, but same subject of ‘Rajneeti’.

So when I take his first work ‘The Rozbal Line’ which he initially published in the pseudonym of Shawn Haigins by Lulu Press, US, I just remember my school days in 1988.  I got a controversial book ‘Jesus Liven in India’  by Holger Kersten which given me impetus to read this book.



Before reading of every book, naturally we will pamper the front and back cover pages and back will be filled with praises about the book. When I read the back, most of them are comparing Ashwin Sanghi with Dan Brown, the author of Da Vinci Code because of the style and narration of ‘The Rozbal Line’. It had been given much enthusiasm to begin my reading and the first Chapter itself provided me an onset on the plot.

The story begins in the Rozabal Tomb in Kashmir which contained  the body of a person named Yuz Asaf. As per locals, this Tomb existed from AD 112 onwards! Then the writer telling us a controversial plot of Jesus Christ’s visit to India, his marriage with Mary Magdalene and their child and descendants. What a great start! What a great plot ! After all, the interesting stuff is it is anti- Catholic and its belief !!

But after reading first chapter, I felt some confusion and the same has been increased in most of the remaining chapters. Different places, different time (BC & AD-twisting of past and present), hundreds of characters etc. Characters are appearing from different parts of the world (India, Britain, USA, Korea, PoK Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Thailand, Israel, Saudi, Jerusalem, Burma, Vatican, Japan, Spain, Turkey, Tajikistan, Greece, Paraguay, Siberia, Philippines, Zimbave, Tibet, Judea, Egypt, France, Italy, Switzerland, Russia, North Korea, China, Malaysia, Iraq, Indonesia, Iran, Guatemala, Australia etc.). So the reader will get a clear confusion about the plot and sometimes slip from the actual thread of the story.

American priest Vincent Sinclair’s parents are died in an accident. He is passing through some kind of vision. He is see the life of Jesus, his Crucifixion, his escape after Crucifixion and some conspiracy for this escape from death to life and the fabricated story of his resurrection in third day!  As priest, he is getting total confusion and along with his aunt Martha, he is trying to search the real fact about his vision. It prompts him to travel different parts of the world especially, Goa (India) to find some valuable scripts at the tomb of St Francis Xavier.

The entire plot is telling one fact; hide the ‘truth’ about Jesus Christ’s visit to India and make terrorism on the basis of this plot. The plot inside the plot is an atom bomb attack in Megiddo, Israel (Like Hiroshima-Nagasaki,Japan).

Like the confusion of BC & AD, different places, hundreds of characters, different time, and different flight schedules; you can see different conspiracies are working in this story. Crux Decussata Permuta, Vatican, Opus Dei (of Da Vinci Code-Dan Brown), Illuminati (of Deception Point-Dan Brown), Al Qaeda of Osama Bin Laden, Laksher-e-Toiba, Lashkar-e-Talatshar etc.

In the middle of book, sometimes I thought why I have to complete this book so fast because the all thrilling effects are leaking from the story through unwanted inputs of history, time and places. Writer utterly makes readers topsy-turvy.

Writer is referring lot of books, theories, religions (Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism etc.) and sometimes it feels readers so cloudy and unaffordable. I bet even though you got a ample memory, it is a tough task to remember the characters, places, incidents and periods of this book. May be writer want to make more perfection. But I believe readers are not much worried about perfection for a thriller or fiction. The purpose of reading a historical survey or thriller is entirely different.

The epitome of this book is – Don’t compare Ashwin Sanghi with Dan Brown. Both have diffident writing styles and with different range. Dan Brown is Dan Brown and Ashwin Sanghi is Ashwin Sanghi.

If you crazy to read about the ‘interesting plot’ of Jesus Christ’s traveling to Kashmir, his troubles after Crucifixion, then you can pick this book and start your reading. If you are more interest to read a thriller, then turn your mind and go for any book of Dan Brown. The hard work of Ashwin Sanghi to gather the information, period, time, places from different sources is really appreciated. His comparison between different religions especially the Trinity in Hinduism (Male: Brahma-Vishnu-Maheswara and Female: Lakshmi-Saraswati-Kali) and Christianity (Father-Son-Holy Ghost) is interesting to theological students.

Writer finally says that all religions are good and all going to same one direction. ‘There is something good to be found in all faiths.  The problem has never been belief but the deliberate interpretation and misuse of it’

Before cease, I want to write one more line. May be still my brain is not matured to afford the plot of The Rozabal Line or it is still indigestible to my mind.
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Book: The Rozabal Line (Paper Back)
Author: AshwinSanghi
Publisher: The Westland Ltd.
Price: Rs. 250.00 

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