American Superhero: Coup D’etat by Ben Coes

To the author, Ben Coes, to be an American is to belong to the Master Race. Period. Superhuman strength; Always right; No doubts, no dilemmas; Always on Top. The only people who can come (somewhat) close to the Americans are the Israelites. The rest are wimps, nincompoops, bunglers, cowards, traitors, avaricious, and brutes. Actually this is not the kind of book that I read but since the scenario involved a nuclear war breaking out between India and Pakistan and the book was being offered at a throwaway price of Rs. 35/-, I picked it up. Unfortunately, even those rupees are too much for this piece of writing.

The author tells us more than once that in Australia, a ranch is called a station. Well done at this piece of research but at the same time, he doesn’t know that India doesn’t have a presidential but rather a parliamentary form of government. The President is just the ceremonial head, all the important decisions are taken by the Prime Minister. One click at google would have revealed the fact to him but no, neither he nor the editors at Pan Macmillan (hardly a novice publishing house) seem to have bothered about this. Ah! The stinking humanity of the Third World doesn’t matter. That’s why, Gen Karreff, the head of the Pakistani Military, is shown canoodling with his mistress and listening to Mozart when his country has just dropped a nuclear bomb and is staring at total annihilation, in retaliation. Nincompoop doesn’t cover it.

At a point in the book, US President Allaire declares grandly to the Indian government that :” We are the country that has protected our allies, including India, with the threat of our nuclear arsenal, for more than a century.” (Thunder and Lightening) Excuse me! I don’t have much of knowledge about this but it is Pakistan which has received support from USA rather than India in all the wars fought between the two neighbouring counties. The geo-political realities might have changed now but lets not distort the past to fit in the present scenario.

And what’s with the names. I have never come across such exotic Indian and Pakistani names. Sample these: Praset Dartalia, Guta Morosla, Darius Mohan, Benazem Banday, Faris Durvan, Rami Mavilius, Persom Karreff, Itrikan Parmir, and Xavier Bolin. The last named is not only the Field Marshal of Pakistan but is later made the President of the country. Will an Islamic country let a Christian become its Field Marshal let alone its President? It boggles the mind as to how little research has gone into the book. But, of course, Coes is not interested in the Sub-Continent (which just serves as an exotic background), he is only and only interested in the exploits of his Superhero:

Out stepped Field Marshal Bolin, followed by another man carrying a submachine gun. This third outsider had long brown hair and a beard and a mustache. He was tall. His chest was broad, barreled, his arm muscles tanned and ripped. Though Bolin was the ranking officer, the most decorated soldier in the entire Pakistani military, it was the stranger who commanded the gaze of every officer in the hangar.

In fact, while reading the book, I was reminded so often of a forgotten book:The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis. That book had shown me the greatness of USA: a country which could satirize itself and laugh at its own foibles even while in the midst of a war. That broadness of mind is what has made US great, Mr. Coes, not your testosterone superhero.

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First Line: Jinnah International Airport