Category: Fiction
Publisher: Fingerprint
Rights: World rights available
The bombs fall at the right places but there are unforeseen consequences, as a result of which the Keeper takes over a Ghublistan shorn of its resources and sliding backwards into the insular society that it used to be….
Ghublistani society has existed untouched for centuries, The remote island of Ghublistan has its own rules, its own social hierarchy, and, best of all, its own little herb, grown in the Divine Garden, that soothes and calms its users when its smoke is inhaled or its brew drunk. When Americans discover that the island has a huge population of bats, and that the guano of those bats is the best natural fertilizer in the world, things change. A fertilizer plant is set up along with a port and soon there are whispers of a strange new political system called democracy.
The Keeper of the Divine Garden, assisted by his barber, is sent forth to discover more about democracy. Their travels cover the largest democracy, India, the oldest democracy, the US, and, in between, a democracy run in the name of a God, Pakistan. On this voyage, the keeper has an unfortunate incident with a yoga teacher in India and gets trailed by the intelligence agencies in Pakistan. Moving to US, where a new president has just taken office, he discovers that all the scriptures except Ghubla’s speak of the destruction of most of mankind, and the rescue of a select few, he takes to mean that people everywhere but in Ghublistan will be destroyed and the Prophet of Ghublistan will be the new Messiah.
Am sure you’ll want to find out how the plot unravels….
The author: Shashi Warrier