Book review: For No Reason At All by Ramjee Chandran

Cloak and dagger with a dash of silicon

 Ramjee Chandran`s debut fiction contains  a cracker of a story. Written in the most elegant manner, infused with generous doses of wit, guile, dash and daring, the story is set in New Delhi when Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister of India, when scams came under the unforgiving lens of journalists with spine (cue wistful sigh) and when Russia eyed the US with deep suspicion, keeping an alert eye out for any activity  out of the ordinary.

But first, we are taken to the  nondescript town of Mettur in Tamil Nadu, and to a nondescript chemical factory there, run by R V Ramani, where we become privy to an exciting in-house discovery: they have the capacity and the ability to produce silicon metal. Silicon is vital to the defence interests of the country though India at the time,  used silicon metal for making solar panels while the world used it for electronics grade applications. To put it into perspective, this is quite an atmanirbhar achievement for the newly set up Metkem.

But there`s a problem – of course. The Department of Electronics headed by a gasbag with considerable powers, Anand Seshadri, has pitched for a National Silicon Facility, with silicon to be imported from the US for India`s needs. Seshadri fully intends to put a big spanner in the Metkem works. And so starts the silicon metal controversy which roils the scientific-industrial-government  complex.

Enter a  dashing but curiously casual James Bond-type of espionage agent, whose day job is that of lobbyist for Metkem and a host of other industries. Our hero goes by the decidedly unusual name of Solly Nilla, drives a beat-up Fiat with starting trouble, seems to be a babe-magnet wherever he goes (and he sure gets around), while also being possessed of a sharp calculating mind that is intent on keeping his clients one step ahead of everyone else in the game.

The entire cast of characters make for an interesting line-up. There`s Ramani with his penchant for tired jokes, Dr Dayal from the DNES with his manic laughter, two Tweedledee-Tweedledum scientists from the IISC Bangalore; there`s Rajiv Gandhi`s chief of intel Praveen Jain, there`s the comely Dr Angela Britto at Seshadri`s unit, as well as her hapless colleague Vinod Pandey  whose homosexuality is the least of his problems. There`s the luscious Antonina Lebedeva from the Russian embassy. All of these people have been written up so divertingly, the reader quickly starts to form a pen picture of them.

Monkey wrench in the works

At the heart of the story is Metkem`s bid to make and  supply silicon all over the country, and Seshadri`s determination to stop them doing so, for him to get his NSF up and flying, importing silicon from the Americans at prohibitive costs of course. Seshadri`s audacious acts quite makes the reader`s jaw drop, even as the aforementioned reader is pretty sure that our Man in Delhi, Solly Nilla, will definitely throw a monkey- wrench into Seshadri`s work.

The snark is delicious, as when we get a description of Seshadri admiring his profile just when a ray of sunlight crept in through the window and framed his reflection in a halo, and he felt a rush of messianic delight.

Or Pandey looking like a troubled character in a dimly lit Shakespearean tragedy asking himself, `What`s loyalty? Loyalty is such a shifting target, so elusive and so enigmatic.`

The question arises whether Seshadri is discrediting Metkem at the behest of a foreign power. But Seshadri`s character is so well delineated that the reader fully understands the bloated sense of pride that drives the bombastic man to do what he does.

Much attention is given to amusing little details, like the archaic English used by the scientists, Seshadri`s Montblanc Meisterstuck pen,  the frequent use of `my dear` in Delhi`s business and political circles. Babudom is wittily explained: the powers invested in PAs, in the people who controlled the photocopy machines, the stranglehold of the IAS on virtually everything, the cunning strategy behind post-facto approvals, the suave PM,  who is actually anything but a Gucci Prime Minister, pondering on how exactly to pronounce `behemoth,`  then losing his cool at a meeting and barking, `It occurs to me you have been ham-handed about this…what are you, some technology savant? ` to a scientist.

Journalist and entrepreneur Ramjee Chandran is known to Bangaloreans as host of two popular podcasts: The Literary City and The History of Bangalore. With this intelligently written book that thoroughly entertains the reader, he should  soon be known across India for his dexterous and effective prose.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/books/2025/Jul/13/silicon-scams-and-a-spy-named-solly

For No Reason At All by Ramjee Chandran. Penguin Books. Rs 699.474 pages.

This ran in the TNIE`s Sunday Express Magazine of 13 July 2025.