I met Dan Brown and... ASDFGHJKL

Well, when I registered for the Penguin Lecture, and received my passes with much toil, I realized that when it comes to the following for Dan Brown, I have a lot of competition. But, what I failed to imagine was that there would be serpentine queues outside the venue, and people must have queued hours before the seating was to begin. Not to mention, the length of the queues was such that they went all the way to the dark shadows cast by the trees beyond the Asian Games Village complex. So many registrations had been cancelled, I should have surmised that the turnout would be overwhelming. Because when Dan Brown entered and was welcomed with a deafening applause, he seemed overwhelmed with surprised elation over the cheers and the standing ovation, perhaps, he was flattered by the magnitude of stardom his works have acquired for readers in India.

Brown who told the enthusiastic audience, some 1000-odd readers of all ages, that he visited India first when he was 19, and felt like he had come home.
I am still in trance of having seen the author and having heard him live, just a few hours before, so I will just highlight the best parts of those 70 minutes spent at Siri Fort auditorium. The lecture was titles 'Codes, Science and religion'




1. His stardom surpassed that of Amitabh Bachhan, a fact that the moderator for the event, Rajdeep Sardesai, himself a Penguin Author, stated matter-of-factly. Yet, he arrived well in time, and it was sharp 7 when he began. So much punctuality, it just had my friend in tears. With girls swooning over him as he arrived at the venue, one could have taken him for an actor. His words: Wow. Thank you. what a nice welcome. Terrific welcome. I am thrilled to be here.

2. His hilarity: Personally, I thought he would be a serious personality, but then I guess, Brown never ceases to surprise his fans. Joking about how the battle between science and religion is the definiton of his life: with a mother who was a church organist and a father who was a mathematics teacher. And the fact that sunday church service were as much a part of his childhood as were his fathers calculation over the best pizza deal at the pizza parlor.

3. He brought the number plates of his parents' cars that reflect their personalities, and his first book, that had a print run of one copy and was called ‘The Giraffe, The Pig and the Pants on fire' all the way across the ocean.

4. He even made fun of the fact that people find it upsetting when he asks the most obvious questions about God, telling the intrigued audience how he is assumed to be wreaking vengeance on God for not answering some childhood prayers. He expressed his confusion over reconciling the difference between science and religion.

5. All religions teach us the same thing: Kindness is better than cruelty, Creation is better than destruction and
Love is better than Hate

6. He was inspired by Hardy Boys to write.

7. He implores us to read the scriptures as metaphors, fables and myths so that we can draw our own lessons.

8. Pen is mightier than the sword. I believe it is. Because the thing about pen is that one pen can reach millions and millions of people. But with a sword, you have to work pretty hard to reach a million people.


Did I tell you he had to be encircled by bouncers from preventing him being attacked by crazy fans?

Check out why I love Angels and Demons here.

Book Review: Angels and Demons

“She looked nothing like the bookish physicist he had expected. Lithe and graceful, she was tall with chestnut skin and long black hair that slurred in the backwind of the rotors. Her face was unmistakably Italian – not overly beautiful, but possessing full, earthy features that even at 20 yards, she seemed to exude a raw sensuality.”

Well, does this description make you wish it were yours? I am sure it did. Because so was the case with me.


To put simply, this character is Vittoria Vetra from the celebrated author Dan Brown’s bestseller work, the immaculately sublime novel “ANGELS AND DEMONS”. It is incontrovertible that all the characters he etches so deftly are worth going under the skin of, for as long as it is about the epicsome rhetoric, enigmatic miens, panoramic venues, sequential mysteries and startling plots that he creates, it hardly matters which character, all characters are etched by him with flawless precision and meticulous perfection that wins any and every reader’s heart.His plots are all peppered with a mind-boggling volume of symbols, cryptography, mythology, code-deciphering, surreptitious rendezvous with strangers, et al.

Robert Langdon, the protagonist of the novel who is a strict Harvard professor, a scintillating symbologist who “relishes recreation with an infectious fanaticism”, is no less of a dream character. Yet, I’d rather prefer to accompany him in his quest, and though Vittoria Vetra's character is subsidiary to Langdon, it is so indispensable to the plot, bereft of an iota of doubt.

Now talking about the story, Langdon and Vittoria Vetra are called up by the Vatican to deploy their brilliance and expertise to a situation. And the situation is nothing short of a murder- an excruciatingly nauseating one, at that.


The journey is characterized by bone-crunching forces and mind-numbing revelations. Vittoria Vetra is the CERN scientist who had developed anti-matter, a breakthrough energy source which she was protecting from falling victim to PR fiascos and political envy. As the story unravels, it is found that a vial of antimatter had been stolen by a secret group called “illuminati” and even I the minutest proportions it was capable of doing far more damage than nuclear weapons. At this stage, the story delves deeper into dark alleys of the intersections of literature, science and religion.


What follows is a journey- nothing short of an epic, interspersed with descriptions of the “papal conclave” due to the sudden death of the pope. Langdon attempts to retrace the steps of the "Path of Illumination", a process once used by the Illuminati as a means of inducting new members; aspirants to the order were required to follow a series of subtle clues left in various landmarks in and around Rome. The clues indicate the secret meeting place of the Illuminati. Langdon sets off on the Path of Illumination in hopes of delivering the Preferiti (the most likely candidates of the papal elections) and recovering the antimatter canister. So he has to decipher the ambigrams, that is with help from Vittoria Vetra. They make deduction regarding the site and manner of death of each of the cardinal. Since its human tendency to be intrigued by matters of life and death, that explains my proclivity to make it true. Here, the W-H-O-L-E Vatican City is at stake. The following quotes are thought-provoking at one level and poignant at another; they work to enrich the text and infuse it with emotions.

• “Nothing captures human interest more than human tragedy.” 

• “Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? ” 

• "Fear cripples faster than any implement of war.” 

• “Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed.” 

• “If it wasn't painfully difficult, you did it wrong!” 

• …Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. 

• “Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone.” 

Such monologues are a treat for the reader, and an intellectual cherry on the plot that Brown creates.
These sum up the theme too.

 The ecstasy and exhilaration, the adrenaline rush, the earth-shattering revelations. The plot is based in Rome, Italy, which adds to the appeal (and the yearning for it to come true)


Well there has to be something about the book that the aforementioned lines still reverberate in my mind-

“From Santi's earthly tomb with demon's hole,

'Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold.

The path of light is laid, the sacred test,

Let angels guide you on your lofty quest.”