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Let Bhutto Eat Grass: Part Three
An agent crosses the Thar desert bearing ominous tidings. The spy network is in tatters, he says. Its agents are dead and buried. Kahuta is crawling with ISI. And the nuclear weapons facility has been ring-fenced with Surface to Air Missiles.
But the bad news doesn't end there. London sees a walk-in deliver a mysterious manuscript. Handwritten inside a jail cell in Rawalpindi, it hints at an explosive secret that threatens everything R&AW have worked for. It falls to Sablok to dig deeper and discover its implications.
And just as Mishra and Arora begin to adjust to these developments, one of R&AW's own is betrayed in the worst possible way.
But the bad news doesn't end there. London sees a walk-in deliver a mysterious manuscript. Handwritten inside a jail cell in Rawalpindi, it hints at an explosive secret that threatens everything R&AW have worked for. It falls to Sablok to dig deeper and discover its implications.
And just as Mishra and Arora begin to adjust to these developments, one of R&AW's own is betrayed in the worst possible way.
318 pages, ebook
Published February 27, 2022
7 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Shaunak Agarkhedkar
6 books23 followersAuthor of Let Bhutto Eat Grass; fountain pen addict; loves writing on paper; currently fixated on turquoise blue ink.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 17, 2022
Another tightly written sequel to the first two installments. This one is longer and therefore gives more joy. There are parts towards the latter half which could do with some editing and things appear to be happening without any explanation but hopefully the loose ends would be tied in the final installment.
Highly recommended. Good reading. Up there with le carre in story development and writing.
Waiting eagerly for the final installment and would strongly recommend the author to write more such good stuff
Highly recommended. Good reading. Up there with le carre in story development and writing.
Waiting eagerly for the final installment and would strongly recommend the author to write more such good stuff
August 6, 2022
The writing gets better with each book. This one is really polished and slick. Though personally I was a bit disappointed that there will be a book 4 but by the end of the book, the disappointment had turned to anticipation.
September 21, 2023
Waiting for the Conclusion!
March 14, 2022
I had entered the Goodreads giveaway (sadly discontinued now) for a book named Let Bhutto Eat Grass in 2017 and was one of the lucky ones to whom the book was promptly shipped by the author / publisher. On first look, the book was not much impressive in terms of size - barely about a hundred-and-fifty pages - and it was self-published to boot. Once I started reading it though, I was gripped by the utterly realistic plot and the fantastic characters and the top-quality writing, and was left thirsting for the second instalment by the end! About a couple of years later, the pleasant experience was repeated with Let Bhutto Eat Grass: Part Two, hugely enhanced by the almost doubled number of pages. The third and final volume was even more eagerly anticipated and here it is, with everything that I had liked about the previous two. What's more, Let Bhutto Eat Grass: Part Three is not the concluding part as indicated before, and there will by another volume that will complete this magnificent tale of espionage.
Following the frenetic days that ended the previous book, which saw all the efforts of the Indian spymasters to sabotage Pakistan's atom bomb programme had come to nought, the team regroups to salvage something out of the disaster. Things have changed quite suddenly in Pakistan too as a coup ends the reign of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who is sent to prison and soon executed. However, the quest to make the bomb goes on unfettered, much to the disappointment of the Indian intelligence agency. Severely crippled by the loss of well-entrenched assets inside the enemy nation and the government's growing antagonism evidenced by heavy budget cuts, the 'Wing' struggles to make the best of the meagre resources and achieve its objective. To add to the list of miseries, a vital member of the team is betrayed by a sibling agency and is rendered inoperative, even hostile to some extent. Thus, things are delicately poised for the team, and for India, as the third episode of this absorbing drama ends.
The crisp plot, the perfect pace of the narrative, the superb characters - both familiar and the new ones, the masterful blending of fact and fiction, the engaging prose: there is nothing I did not like with this excellent espionage thriller! I loved it and can't wait to read the final part.
This series has to be read in proper order only as doing otherwise will spoil the previous books.
Following the frenetic days that ended the previous book, which saw all the efforts of the Indian spymasters to sabotage Pakistan's atom bomb programme had come to nought, the team regroups to salvage something out of the disaster. Things have changed quite suddenly in Pakistan too as a coup ends the reign of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who is sent to prison and soon executed. However, the quest to make the bomb goes on unfettered, much to the disappointment of the Indian intelligence agency. Severely crippled by the loss of well-entrenched assets inside the enemy nation and the government's growing antagonism evidenced by heavy budget cuts, the 'Wing' struggles to make the best of the meagre resources and achieve its objective. To add to the list of miseries, a vital member of the team is betrayed by a sibling agency and is rendered inoperative, even hostile to some extent. Thus, things are delicately poised for the team, and for India, as the third episode of this absorbing drama ends.
The crisp plot, the perfect pace of the narrative, the superb characters - both familiar and the new ones, the masterful blending of fact and fiction, the engaging prose: there is nothing I did not like with this excellent espionage thriller! I loved it and can't wait to read the final part.
This series has to be read in proper order only as doing otherwise will spoil the previous books.
September 9, 2022
This is the prelude of an upcoming drawdown and the narrative sentimentality will grow on you if you dig in a semi-real spook saga.
Mr Agarkhedkar, though new in this 'pen wielding' business, possesses a deft and wizened composer-like hand that is bound to compel you to groove to this "70s canvassed, old dusty Delhi soaked, brash ISI thugs smoked, grand lake Geneva stained, white rainy London drenched, breezy Israel's Mossad chained and hot yellow cake flavoured" smoke and mirror tale-tune.
Waiting for the fourth.
Mr Agarkhedkar, though new in this 'pen wielding' business, possesses a deft and wizened composer-like hand that is bound to compel you to groove to this "70s canvassed, old dusty Delhi soaked, brash ISI thugs smoked, grand lake Geneva stained, white rainy London drenched, breezy Israel's Mossad chained and hot yellow cake flavoured" smoke and mirror tale-tune.
Waiting for the fourth.
April 4, 2022
One of the best Indian mil fiction book. Had me engrossed for days. Would recommend it to everyone.
December 16, 2022
A slow read compared to the first two books. Interesting enough though with more characters and a bigger game at play!!
July 20, 2023
The real world of espionage is far removed from the fictional realm of glitzy James Bond movies. In fact, it's a long game of patience. Paperwork, recruitment, departmental politics — the third installment of 'Let Bhutto Eat Grass' explores the not-so-glamorous side of intelligence agencies.
The most impressive part here is the historical accuracy. Many of the streets, organisations, travel routes etc., mentioned in the chapters actually exist. Such thorough research, even for minute details, makes the plot more interesting.
While the author makes a stylistic choice of having long-winded dialogues, he also creates a suspenseful undercurrent to keep his readers hooked.
Overall, the book is best compared to filler episodes which air before the grand finale. It's not the action-packed sequences that matter, but the tiny bits of information which may play a big role in the build-up towards the end.
The excitement for the last of the series has only intensified.
The most impressive part here is the historical accuracy. Many of the streets, organisations, travel routes etc., mentioned in the chapters actually exist. Such thorough research, even for minute details, makes the plot more interesting.
While the author makes a stylistic choice of having long-winded dialogues, he also creates a suspenseful undercurrent to keep his readers hooked.
Overall, the book is best compared to filler episodes which air before the grand finale. It's not the action-packed sequences that matter, but the tiny bits of information which may play a big role in the build-up towards the end.
The excitement for the last of the series has only intensified.
July 26, 2023
That it took as long as four decades after the explosion at Pokhran to fictionally sift through India's nuclear history is telling of the simpler issues such genre fiction usually addresses: the ambivalence around a nuclear warhead is such that it doesn't strike one as being a subject urgent enough to be addressed in a thriller – the stakes are not immediately tangible; quite the opposite, actually – the consequences are long-drawn, their impact too distant in time to be considered fodder for fiction.
Simpler, more black-and-white matters such as terrorism are easier to construct fictional facades around. Weapons of mass destruction – every sovereign nation's right, one could argue – leave too much room for argument.
Shaunak Agarkhedkar's Let Bhutto Eat Grass series deserves to be read as a fictional account of how a country chooses to enact its foreign and defence policies vis-à-vis a historically hostile neighbour. Insofar, these nations are not blind to the damage a nuclear warhead can render, but their purpose is to explore the more pragmatic side of the argument – to stop, by means covert, another nation from building a bomb.
In 1974, in the Thar Desert, Buddha Smiled as India became a nuclear power. Five years later, a man is intercepted in the same desert, having just about made it out alive from the fallout of an Indian excursion to Kahuta.
An "int" – different government has led to budget cuts for the Research and Analysis Wing in the third instalment of the Let Bhutto Eat Grass series, and the Mandarins inside – war-wounded youngster Sablok, ageing veteran Arora, and Section Chief Mishra – must make do with whatever scraps they can get their hands on.
One among these scraps comes from the land of India's colonisers, where the memoirs of Zulfi Bhutto – he of the title, written before his execution at the hands of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq – land in the lap of an operative of the Wing, who immediately communicates it to her superiors sweating it out in Delhi.
The first inkling that Part III might be different from its predecessors is when, soon after, it inserts the reader into London, Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan finds mention. It's the most noticeable cultural nod in a series curiously bereft of those, focused as they are on the politicking of the time. This book is sprinkled with them, almost as if Agarkhedkar were making up for lost opportunities.
It's an improvement upon Part II, which, while compelling enough, was bogged down by Sablok's Trombay trips and the masses of technical know-how/what. Agarkhedkar doesn't as much venture close to the bomb this time – the focus is now on the facility which could produce one, and just how far the Pakistanis have gotten in building one.
History buffs will be directed to the tests in Balochistan in '98 as being evidence of Pakistan's nuclear capability, and it is to Agarkhedkar's credit that he conceives a story wherein the development of such technology is probable two decades earlier.
What truly gives the book legs is that which made its predecessors such unusual specimens in the world of Indian espionage fiction – Sablok is not the hero. Nor is Arora. Nor Mishra. Yeshwant Mhatre is an operative, but not the operative, and James Bond, he is light years away from being. And Nissa, the London-based operative, is as much a femme fatale as GoldenEye's Xenia Onatopp is an analyst.
As if Pakistan's determination to eat grass weren't enough, the Wing's own government is a pain in the ass, burrowing its face into its personnel files and making mountains of molehills it finds interesting enough. One can't help but link it to the events of the neighbouring nation, where a legally-elected Prime Minister has not only been deposed but also been literally done away with, and wonder whether that is what Raisina Hill fears over and above all else.
Agarkhedkar keeps it strictly professional – something which wasn't as irksome in the earlier two books, which were a fair bit shorter than Part III. Here, the lack of personal lives the characters have is noticeable, and though Nissa has a drinking session with her neighbours early on, there is little else outside of work depicted.
In some ways, it is admirable (how many real espionage novels explore the personal side of the personnel?), but when you've spent as much time with the characters as Part III makes you, it gets a little monotonous to remain huddled inside workspaces.
That his use of language retains its proven traits does Agarkhedkar tremendous credit. It's a terrific exercise in the art of restraint: the functionality of language is paramount, and its deployment is in keeping with a spartan space Agarkhedkar has made his own. It doesn't feel underwritten. There's an ebb and flow. There's the kind of humour you'll only get out of government servants – kooky, often morbid, but economical.
Nothing in the book will make a reader gasp or guffaw, but that's sometimes for the best – quiet, methodical writing can be just as compelling as quiet, methodical spycraft is.
This piece was originally published in Swarajya on the 28th of May 2022.
Simpler, more black-and-white matters such as terrorism are easier to construct fictional facades around. Weapons of mass destruction – every sovereign nation's right, one could argue – leave too much room for argument.
Shaunak Agarkhedkar's Let Bhutto Eat Grass series deserves to be read as a fictional account of how a country chooses to enact its foreign and defence policies vis-à-vis a historically hostile neighbour. Insofar, these nations are not blind to the damage a nuclear warhead can render, but their purpose is to explore the more pragmatic side of the argument – to stop, by means covert, another nation from building a bomb.
In 1974, in the Thar Desert, Buddha Smiled as India became a nuclear power. Five years later, a man is intercepted in the same desert, having just about made it out alive from the fallout of an Indian excursion to Kahuta.
An "int" – different government has led to budget cuts for the Research and Analysis Wing in the third instalment of the Let Bhutto Eat Grass series, and the Mandarins inside – war-wounded youngster Sablok, ageing veteran Arora, and Section Chief Mishra – must make do with whatever scraps they can get their hands on.
One among these scraps comes from the land of India's colonisers, where the memoirs of Zulfi Bhutto – he of the title, written before his execution at the hands of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq – land in the lap of an operative of the Wing, who immediately communicates it to her superiors sweating it out in Delhi.
The first inkling that Part III might be different from its predecessors is when, soon after, it inserts the reader into London, Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan finds mention. It's the most noticeable cultural nod in a series curiously bereft of those, focused as they are on the politicking of the time. This book is sprinkled with them, almost as if Agarkhedkar were making up for lost opportunities.
It's an improvement upon Part II, which, while compelling enough, was bogged down by Sablok's Trombay trips and the masses of technical know-how/what. Agarkhedkar doesn't as much venture close to the bomb this time – the focus is now on the facility which could produce one, and just how far the Pakistanis have gotten in building one.
History buffs will be directed to the tests in Balochistan in '98 as being evidence of Pakistan's nuclear capability, and it is to Agarkhedkar's credit that he conceives a story wherein the development of such technology is probable two decades earlier.
What truly gives the book legs is that which made its predecessors such unusual specimens in the world of Indian espionage fiction – Sablok is not the hero. Nor is Arora. Nor Mishra. Yeshwant Mhatre is an operative, but not the operative, and James Bond, he is light years away from being. And Nissa, the London-based operative, is as much a femme fatale as GoldenEye's Xenia Onatopp is an analyst.
As if Pakistan's determination to eat grass weren't enough, the Wing's own government is a pain in the ass, burrowing its face into its personnel files and making mountains of molehills it finds interesting enough. One can't help but link it to the events of the neighbouring nation, where a legally-elected Prime Minister has not only been deposed but also been literally done away with, and wonder whether that is what Raisina Hill fears over and above all else.
Agarkhedkar keeps it strictly professional – something which wasn't as irksome in the earlier two books, which were a fair bit shorter than Part III. Here, the lack of personal lives the characters have is noticeable, and though Nissa has a drinking session with her neighbours early on, there is little else outside of work depicted.
In some ways, it is admirable (how many real espionage novels explore the personal side of the personnel?), but when you've spent as much time with the characters as Part III makes you, it gets a little monotonous to remain huddled inside workspaces.
That his use of language retains its proven traits does Agarkhedkar tremendous credit. It's a terrific exercise in the art of restraint: the functionality of language is paramount, and its deployment is in keeping with a spartan space Agarkhedkar has made his own. It doesn't feel underwritten. There's an ebb and flow. There's the kind of humour you'll only get out of government servants – kooky, often morbid, but economical.
Nothing in the book will make a reader gasp or guffaw, but that's sometimes for the best – quiet, methodical writing can be just as compelling as quiet, methodical spycraft is.
This piece was originally published in Swarajya on the 28th of May 2022.
December 10, 2023
The third in a series of four books, this one is clearly not as tight in structure and pacing as the earlier ones. The author mentions in the preface that what was intended to be one book - the last of the trilogy - ended up being long enough to be split into two.
There's certainly enough action and plot here to spill over into another book, but there's clearly a Dan Brown like tendency in this book to have long monologues or overly descriptive scene settings that affect the propulsive nature of the tale.
Nevertheless, it is still an enjoyable book that builds well on the arc of the first two.
There's certainly enough action and plot here to spill over into another book, but there's clearly a Dan Brown like tendency in this book to have long monologues or overly descriptive scene settings that affect the propulsive nature of the tale.
Nevertheless, it is still an enjoyable book that builds well on the arc of the first two.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews