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Anchor
'Riveting story, intelligently told with sly humour' - Kunal Basu
'Avik Chanda's debut novel is a relentless, heartbreaking roller-coaster played out against the ticking of a clock, which grows ever more ominous as the hours go by, minute by minute. His is a tale of greed, terror and death, but also of heroism and love. Chanda's exploration of the depths of man's inhumanity is made even more stark by passages of quiet beauty that take the breath away.' - Joan Harcourt, Literary Editor, Queen's Quarterly
A firebrand ex-Naxal who seems to have gone missing at a critical juncture. A veteran journalist accompanied by a young and naive sub-editor determined to find the truth. A suave but ruthless politician with a hidden agenda, equally determined to stop the truth from getting out. A gang of hardened criminals ready to do his bidding in cohorts with the police. Helpless villagers who are mere pawns in a bigger game. And a group of anxious editors waiting in the claustrophobic newsroom of The Sentinel for the night to pass and the next day's 'anchor' to unfold in the killing fields of a village on the outskirts of Kolkata. Over the course of an unforgettable, stifling, rain-soaked night, the lives of these characters intertwine, clash and are changed inexorably. In Anchor, Avik Chanda presents a picture of Kolkata in the late 1990s, and serving as its foil, a tiny fictional village, where people risk losing their homes, land - and finally, even their lives.
'Avik Chanda's debut novel is a relentless, heartbreaking roller-coaster played out against the ticking of a clock, which grows ever more ominous as the hours go by, minute by minute. His is a tale of greed, terror and death, but also of heroism and love. Chanda's exploration of the depths of man's inhumanity is made even more stark by passages of quiet beauty that take the breath away.' - Joan Harcourt, Literary Editor, Queen's Quarterly
A firebrand ex-Naxal who seems to have gone missing at a critical juncture. A veteran journalist accompanied by a young and naive sub-editor determined to find the truth. A suave but ruthless politician with a hidden agenda, equally determined to stop the truth from getting out. A gang of hardened criminals ready to do his bidding in cohorts with the police. Helpless villagers who are mere pawns in a bigger game. And a group of anxious editors waiting in the claustrophobic newsroom of The Sentinel for the night to pass and the next day's 'anchor' to unfold in the killing fields of a village on the outskirts of Kolkata. Over the course of an unforgettable, stifling, rain-soaked night, the lives of these characters intertwine, clash and are changed inexorably. In Anchor, Avik Chanda presents a picture of Kolkata in the late 1990s, and serving as its foil, a tiny fictional village, where people risk losing their homes, land - and finally, even their lives.
195 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 15, 2014
2 people are currently reading
4 people want to read
About the author
Avik Chanda
8 books21 followersAvik Chanda holds degrees in economics from Kolkata's Presidency College and the Delhi School of Economics. With two decades of global Big 4 Consulting experience, he is a business adviser, entrepreneur, trainer and a speaker at the Outstanding Speaker's Bureau. He has published two poetry collections, Jokhon Bideshe, in Bengali (Protibhash, 2006) and Footnotes (Shearsman, 2008), besides a novel, Anchor (HarperCollins, 2015). His acclaimed business book, From Command To Empathy: Using EQ in the Age of Disruption (HarperCollins, 2017), co-authored with Suman Ghose, was featured in 2018 in Amazon India's Best Reads, under 'Business, Strategy and Management'.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 23, 2015
A debut novel! Really! Anchor by Avik Chanda is a brilliantly accomplished story with a real screenplay quality to it.
Anchor takes you directly into a news room of Calcutta weaving its story during the graveyard shift of the newspaper Sentinel. The racy thriller starts when the two brave news reporters set foot into a war like zone of a Calcutta village. Inspired by the one of the most violent agrarian crises in India, The Nandigram crises, the story unfolds during the dark rainy night when gruesome events occurred in the village. As the night progresses lives of multiple characters depicts the clash between police, ruling party members and villagers. Although I didn't know about Nandigram crises in much detail, the book gave me a sensitive hard reality of the inhuman brutality that occurred in 1990s.
The most unique quality of the novel is the graphical clock at the start of each chapter which leaves one hooked to the story line and creates a sense of urgency throughout the novel. The Different characters bring unique angels to this fascinating thriller supported by dark humor. Anchor is a beautifully realized novel that doesn't shy away from describing the horrors of crises as well as life's moments of beauty. The roles played by the newspaper team, party goons, policemen and politician all work together to build this graphically vivid story.
Avik handles the narrative with assurance, juggling the reader’s emotions, sympathies while adding crumbs of crucial information.
Talking about the climax, it couldn't have been a better end to the story, leaving one impressed by the story and engulfed in the emotions of its characters. One of the best thing about the book is not focusing on a single character, while all play their part crisply to make the story powerful and impressive.
An extraordinarily strong debut that remains steadily written and gives its readers a fresh and wonderful weekend read. So, Anchor yourself, once you start reading it’s hard to keep the book down. Great job Avik Chanda!
Anchor takes you directly into a news room of Calcutta weaving its story during the graveyard shift of the newspaper Sentinel. The racy thriller starts when the two brave news reporters set foot into a war like zone of a Calcutta village. Inspired by the one of the most violent agrarian crises in India, The Nandigram crises, the story unfolds during the dark rainy night when gruesome events occurred in the village. As the night progresses lives of multiple characters depicts the clash between police, ruling party members and villagers. Although I didn't know about Nandigram crises in much detail, the book gave me a sensitive hard reality of the inhuman brutality that occurred in 1990s.
The most unique quality of the novel is the graphical clock at the start of each chapter which leaves one hooked to the story line and creates a sense of urgency throughout the novel. The Different characters bring unique angels to this fascinating thriller supported by dark humor. Anchor is a beautifully realized novel that doesn't shy away from describing the horrors of crises as well as life's moments of beauty. The roles played by the newspaper team, party goons, policemen and politician all work together to build this graphically vivid story.
Avik handles the narrative with assurance, juggling the reader’s emotions, sympathies while adding crumbs of crucial information.
Talking about the climax, it couldn't have been a better end to the story, leaving one impressed by the story and engulfed in the emotions of its characters. One of the best thing about the book is not focusing on a single character, while all play their part crisply to make the story powerful and impressive.
An extraordinarily strong debut that remains steadily written and gives its readers a fresh and wonderful weekend read. So, Anchor yourself, once you start reading it’s hard to keep the book down. Great job Avik Chanda!
March 12, 2015
The book is well paced - I loved the trail of suspense left by the author throughout the book. Pictures of Calcutta city are brought to life quite well. The newsroom and the journalists, their talk and life was very interesting to read. I'm still left with a lot of questions about the story which makes me think the characters were after all carriers of the story while the story itself was the protagonist. Good read!
February 3, 2022
Somewhat felt like "The Lowland", which I loved.
April 5, 2015
Avik Chanda’s debut novel is not your run of the mill thriller. It will keep you gripped but the story does not have a ‘neat finish’ but true to life, leaves you guessing just that bit to make you come up with possible interpretations of what must have happened. The background is based on true events involving seizure of agricultural land for industrial development and the protest by farmers and others in the village which led to a violent attack on them by mafia with implicit state support. The novel though largely stays away from political discourse but is built around the tension in a newsroom where they are awaiting a report from their star correspondent and the events that unfold in the village itself. Written in a terse yet lucid way, with beautifully done subtle strokes that spin small side stories, this is the intelligent man’s thriller.
July 13, 2015
For a debut fiction, worth reading. Fast paced easy and quick read. The story starting which lasts from 7.30pm to 5.07am takes the various shades of a issue.
October 15, 2021
Nice story but I wish it was narrated from the pov of a villager entrenched in the conflict rather than a behind the scenes of journalists writing their story.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews