Veerappan- Chasing the Brigand-A review.

I was a little hesitant to pick up this book since being a police officer, I arrogantly thought that I knew all about this incident and the history of Veerappan, so why waste precious time and money to read what I already knew?


Reading the first few pages of the book on kindle made me realise I was far from knowing anything about Veerappan or his daring escapades or even about the author. This book is not just a depiction of the Jungle brigand alone, it is the portrayal of heroic sacrifice of hundreds of dedicated police officers, officers of the forest department and innocent civilians. It is the story of Mr. Vijayakumar IPS, the reputed encounter specialist, an officer par excellence in all the different fields of policing he has worked, his vision, dreams and its realisation. The kindle pages left me gasping for the book, I just had to read it all, I felt suffocated without the rest of the thrilling saga.

And it was simply amazing. The narrative, the style, use of language and the depiction surely made this book a page turner till the end which makes one slightly disappointed that it has come to an end. We want great things to go on and on without ending, so I flipped back the pages and re read some parts where the timeline danced around from 1992 to 2004, sometimes the events interposing and dates interloping, oddly adding to the charm of narration.


Initially one wonders why there were several points of views in the book and why thoughts and feelings were put in inverted commas like conversations. I felt it could have been avoided. Towards the end, it became clear that there was a purpose for both, since the author intended to create several heros in this work, including the antagonist and thoughts, feelings and ruminations of each reflects their character, hence they fall within inverted commas.

Any autobiographical book will have a central character, a larger than life hero, a daring and admirable personality. Not so in this book. The author lavishes credit and appreciation to all his team members and humbly puts himself as just one of the several players in chase of the cruel bandit, which is quite a rare phenomena. I am sure that that this book, titled after the hunted will find its due place in the annals of Indian Literature since it is just not a case study, but a literary gem too.

Roopa publishers have done a great job with this book, the rustic cover, the size of the book and its print are excellent.

I highly recommend this book, it is every bit worth its space in your private library. All police officers should read it too, since we can learn a lot from it.