Bye-bye and all the very best!

Set in the lower middle class of Bengaluru 'Hari, A Hero For Hire' by Zac O'Yeah brings us characters for whom nothing ever goes right. Although intelligently written, ultimately you just want the story to end soon

The second Hari Majestic novel, ‘Hari, A Hero for Hire’ by Zac O’Yeah is a pulp-fiction crime novel set in Bengaluru. After his stint as a tout in his first book titled ‘Mr Majestic! The Tout of Bengaluru’, Hari moves to fulfill his dream of becoming a “hero” and starts his detective agency, “Mr Majestic, OK & Co Proper Investigations by Heroes for Hire (Confidential)” at CD Road, along with his buddies, who hold posts like Video Surveillance Specialist MR Triplex, symbolic to his infamous piracy of XXX movies, Cyber Crime Cell Supervisor (CCC-S) Mr Doc and head of HR (Hit & Run division) Mr AC Gaadi. Yes, those are their names.

His first case comes from a man, who suspects his wife of marital infidelity. Triplex creates false evidence by luring the wife and filming a scene with her in a seedy lodge. Ironically, nothing happens at the lodge. However, Hari submits the photos as evidence. The suspecting husband finds out the reality and sets goons on Hari, who ends up in a gutter with a broken leg.

One after another, epic fail events by him and his agency during the investigation land Hari at the Globalised Super Specialty Hospital, which turns out to be a front for illegal activities. Crafty named staff (tattooed Dr Viral, sensual Nurse Diamond and others) with a stern head nurse, Kolaveri, treat Hari for free under some charity scheme (because he is broke and a low-life). However, he soon finds out that one of his kidneys and a part of his liver have been taken without his consent.

After much deliberation on decoding the vibes from Nurse Diamond, Hari takes her in on the investigation. One wrong move after another, and one correct move of setting up surveillance in his room, Hari solves the case, gets the culprits arrested by informing his contact, the Sub-Inspector Pushpa, finds his estranged mother, who had given him up when he was a baby and marries Nurse Diamond.

The book is set in the lower-middle class of Bengaluru with apt situations and characters, whose high-risk behaviour usually lands them in trouble, in spite of their noble intentions. Hari is no different from the grub of slum; uneducated and crassly opinionated as any other low-life, he is broke yet seems to get by through his friends’ help.

Intelligently written in brazen language, the book has the kind of humour where you are not laughing with the characters; you are laughing at them because they are stupid and silly; nothing ever goes right for them. Everybody is a prude and indulges in gender-based discrimination, not because they want to be sexists but because that is how things are in the lower strata of the economy; they have very little awareness on the right and wrong of human rights. The book also shows one major aspect of lives of people in the lower-middle class through Hari’s constant use of the phrase, “Ok. Bye-bye and all the very best!” in any situation, good or bad; the philosophy is “live and let live.”

It is not a very striking story with a deep crime setting. The “hero” is more criminal than the people he is investigating. After the mystery (or lack of it) is solved, the book goes on for three more chapters where characters (including the ones from Hari’s first case) play catch-up with each other and make the reader just go, “bye-bye and all the best,” because after 329 pages of incessant crass thought processes, you want it to end; it’s a one-time read. Not bad, not good; just like its characters.