Shining Dawn

Author: AG Chaudhuri
Publisher: Jufic Books, Mumbai
(Pp 368, ISBN: 9789382473442, Rs 245)

Zach had been served jail-term for a crime he committed but could not recall… Green planet activists disappear mysteriously at sea… Freak fire destroys camp sites in a desert claiming lives…Everything around the mankind seems to be moving on its last legs. Shining Dawn unfolds protagonist physicist Zach’s commitment to stop the beginning of the end of the world. He began dreaming hallucinations since unknown circumstances forced him out of work almost a year ago. According to doctors, his unholy dreams could be a result of some stress. Hunted by corrupt lawmen and a savage beasty killer, past five years had been blank for Zach as he couldn’t remember anything about himself and happenings around him during this period. He was being locked behind bars for a crime he is still trying to find out what it was.

Reality finally bites as its ultimate threat. News reports on TV from all over the world reveal that 23,000 people being feared dead in worst ever land-quack in densely populated provinces, crop yields fail for third consecutive seasons, biologists predict destruction of marine eco-system and so on as Zach found everything in real. Disorders in the eco-system have resurfaced some animals that had been extinct long time ago. Vapeeti, four-legged herbivores, which were dominant grazing animal species now reappeared agitated. All happened when the civilization has reached its pinnacle of modernity. But its bare foundation has been corroded in arrogance, greed and corruption of mankind. Hopes still survive in Zach even after the world is reeling on the brink of catastrophe and he attempts to rebuild the forgotten past. Read on to discover the next.

– Jyaneswar Laishram