Howazatt!?

Set in the not-so-distant future, the Sci-fi story revolves around the Indian Cricket captain who is ruthless in victories and believes in winning at all costs. Known for his hard work and mechanical execution of plans, he is the envy of the Cricket world. All is going well with him, and his visibly invincible Indian team, until he meets a suave business tycoon who is set to change the face of sports forever. He throws a challenge at the Indian captain, who finds it hard to refuse. The challenge involves his Indian Team defeating an immaculate team designed and brought into this world, exclusively, to play the sport. This unique challenge, however, is only the beginning. Cricketers from all around the world soon follow the Indian captain in the world of agony and humiliation. The Indian captain’s world begins to fall further apart, as the game of Cricket is snatched away from him and every known human cricketer. With any possible attempt at resurrection neutralized pre-emptively, the Indian captain falls into the darkness of despair.

When all seems to be lost, his close friends set up a meeting between him and a monk, who loves the game of Cricket. With visionary inputs from the monk, the Indian captain develops a fresh perspective of the game and sees hope and purpose in his existence again. Additionally, an intelligent female acquaintance from the past joins hands to provide her expertise and strategy to plot an elegant plan of attack. Armed with the inspiration from the monk, newly instilled self-confidence from his friends, extraordinary vision from the intelligent woman…and a bizarre team of extraordinary individuals, the captain considers himself well and truly on his way to achieve the impossible. But the road to redemption is never a straight path. He will have to battle his own betrayal and face a brutal past before he could again become the leader of the pack. Will he be able to bring the game of Cricket back into human lives? Will he be able to conquer what should be conquered? Or will he fail again in the monumental task that no human being has ever succeeded at? Will he become a winner? Or will he go beyond winning?

Written in a crisp, quirky language and celebrating the indomitable human spirit, the book is a science-fiction thriller with the game of Cricket as the backdrop. Narrated in a non-linear fashion, the story has all the elements that go into making a potboiler story like humor, sarcasm, romance, science, data science, robotics, crazy characters, sane characters, self-discovery, self-actualization…and of course, Cricket! The book outlines a roller-coaster journey of human beings in the future learning to rediscover what it entails to be a human being in a technologically advanced world.