Sacred games
Seven years in the making, Sacred Games is an epic of exceptional richness and power. Vikram Chandra's novel draws the reader deep into the life of Inspector Sartaj Singh—and into the criminal underworld of Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India.Sartaj, one of the very few Sikhs on the Mumbai police force, is used to being identified by his turban, beard and the sharp cut of his trousers. But "the silky Sikh" is now past forty, his marriage is over and his career prospects are on the slide. When Sartaj gets an anonymous tip-off as to the secret hide-out of the legendary boss of G-Company, he's determined that he'll be the one to collect the prize. Vikram Chandra's keenly anticipated new novel is a magnificent story of friendship and betrayal, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its dark side. Drawing inspiration from the classics of nineteenth-century fiction, mystery novels, Bollywood movies and Chandra's own life and research on the streets of Mumbai, Sacred Games evokes with devastating realism the way we live now but resonates with the intelligence and emotional depth of the best of literature.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
5mentions
5people
2014–2023years
60% recommend40% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- These worked for me:
Tony Hillerman <the early books, 1970s and 80s> (US Southwest indian lands)
Carolyn See, The handyman, 1999 (Los Angeles)
Henry Chang, Chinatown Beat, 2006 (New York City Chinatown)
Laura Antoniou, The killer wore leather, 2013 (BDSM convention in the US)
Sujata Massey <the early books, 1990s> (Japan daily life)
Natsuo Kirino, Real World, 2006 (and other titles, Japan daily life)
Inio Asano, Goodnight Punpun, 2007- (manga, small town and middle school life in Japan)
Inio Asano, Downfall, 2020 (manga, Japan midlife crisis, mangaka)
Peter Tasker <several 1990s and 2000s> (Japan daily life)
Hideo Yokoyama, Six Four, 2012 (Japan job hierarchy - here in a Police setting)
John Burdett, The Last Six Million Seconds - Hong Kong will never be the same, 1997 (Hong Kong)
John Burdett, Bangkok 8, 2003 (Thailand)
Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games, 2006 (Mumbai)
Craig Joseph Danner, Himalayan Dhaba, 2001 (India mountains)
Faïza Guène, Kiffe kiffe demain, 2004 or Du rève pour les oufs, 2006 (Paris projects)
- The author blurb at the end of this brilliant piece simply says "Vikram Chandra: Writer, programmer, teacher." It wasn't until I clicked through to the linked website[0] that I realized that this was THE Vikram Chandra. His novels Sacred Games and Red Earth And Pouring Rain are very highly recommended. He also has a non-fiction book, Geek Sublime that seems somewhat related to this article.
- Look up Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra - it's a great, multilayered story. I'm hoping it will be made into a movie someday!
- I read 50 books this year. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/50-books-i-read-year-fahad-ud...
One Minute Manager
Talent is Overrated
Originals
Measure What Matters
Crossing the Chasm
Mindset
The Startup Of You
Remote - Office not Required
So Good They Can't Ignore You
The 8 Traits Successful People
The Box
The Defining Decade - Why Your Twenties Matter - Meg Jay
The Power of Habit
Cracking the Coding Interview
The Google Resume
Brain Rules
Automatic Millionaire
Rich Dad Poor Dad
Bootstrappers Bible
Startup Nation
The Lean Startup
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Ideavirus
Traction - Gabriel Weinberg
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
The $100 Startup
The Customer Funded Business
Alibaba - The House That Jack Ma Built by Duncan Clark
Don't Make Me Think - A Common Sense Approach To Web Usability
Hooked
Shoe Dog
Side Hustle
Start With Why
The Phoenix Project
Wiley The Customer Funded Business
13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
The Pragmatic Programmer
Outliers
Delivering Happiness
The Four Hour Work Week
Good to Great
Sacred Games
Option B
Entrepreneuring Pakistan
Give and Take
Your Money or Your Life
Zero to One - Notes on Startups
Pour Your Heart Into It
Fourth Industrial Revolution
- Sacred Games is now on the reading list.
I shall have a look at Geek Sublime at a bookshop and decide then.
Quote about an earlier book from another interview...
"Sometimes even you can look at something you wrote six months back and be baffled. So the programmer’s job becomes that of, “a person should understand, by looking at a particular section of code exactly what it’s trying to do and exactly how it’s doing it”. One step beyond is that if you can do something elegant rather than a jugaadu solution. Often that also leads to better functionality."
http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/5tzbaP50JGO5bAfqZBPOzI/Code...
