School kids solving mysteries has become a bit clichéd, hasn’t it? It calls to mind those perennial, yet ever so slightly predictable series of books by Enid Blyton or the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries, all very well as far as they go, but a far cry from school life in India. But the genre doesn’t have to be safe and old-fashioned – it’s exciting to see Indian writers trying their hand at writing stories belonging to this genre and adding verve, fun, suspense and an atmosphere you can really relate to in their stories. A couple of years back, this column featured Aniruddha Sen Gupta’s Fundoo 4: The Mystery Of Mindnet. This time, we’ll take a look at the first book in what promises to be an exciting new mystery series The Case Of The Candy Bandit by Archit Taneja. This is Taneja’s first book. He is a software engineer, but don’t hold that against him. A surprisingly large number of young people in Bangalore, where he lives, are software engineers.
The detectives in this book call themselves the Superlative Sleuths. There are two of them: Rachita and Aarti. Rachita is the brainy, scientific one and is the one who comes up with the idea of being a detective. Aarti, her best friend, is more into artsy stuff and is even a little loopy, with her elaborate fantasy stories about ballet dancing peanuts and what not. But that doesn’t mean that Rachita’s façade of rationalism is impervious – Rachita has some pretty weird dreams featuring a sheep in a tie and one with an ancient Greek scientist. But her crazy dreams end up helping her solve mysteries.
So what is the first mystery that the indomitable duo has to deal with? It’s what Aarti calls ‘The Case of the Candy Bandit’ – a catchy name, as Rachita has to admit.
The children in their class at school are part of a plan by the parents and teachers to make the kids eat their lunch regularly. They get special treat packets in their lunch boxes – but only as long as they eat the rest of their lunch. The honest kids eat their lunch and then enjoy their desserts. The sneaky ones ditch lunch and just enjoy the sweet treats. Things seem to be going along all right – until desserts of some kids in the class begin to disappear day after day.
What follows is a great mix of fun and serious detective action. The characters are fresh, funny and very believable middle-school kids, complete with pranks, jealousy and gross eating behaviour. The rapport between Rachita and Aarti is great – they may be different in many ways, but their friendship is very strong and you will see how they benefit by being different and yet complementing each other.
Still, the game is afoot, as a very famous sleuth would say, and Rachita uses a number of clever techniques to crack the case, including setting traps for the crook, spying on the scene of the crime and at one point, plotting the locations of the thefts and trying to find the most likely point of origin with the help of mathematical calculations provided by her dad. Along the way, we learn more about the ancient Greek scientist Archimedes, and about having rats as pets among other things.
A light touch, lively, with believable characters and an ingenious mystery – Taneja has certainly delivered an engaging debut novel. It’s good to see that Indian children finally get to read mystery novels in a setting that they can relate to, instead of some English countryside picnic with lashings of cider or a generic American cityscape. Keep the trend going by buying and reading your own copy of this excellent debut novel. And perhaps you can even pen your own mystery novel?
Things to do:
Imagine a mystery happening in your classroom. Who will be your suspects? Who can you rule out completely? What if the culprit is from the group you ruled out?
Cast yourself and your best friend(s) as detectives. What qualities do each of you have that would be useful in solving mysteries? Mathematical skills? Athletic prowess? Amazing memory? Keen sense of smell?
Now put the mystery and the detectives together, shake well and write your own detective story!