num_pages: 389
description: Book Summary of Q And A Warm-hearted first novel from a fresh, irreverent comic Indian voice - a Quiz Show of Life for the twenty-first century This is the era of the televised General Knowledge quiz show, and with jackpot prizes swelling around the world, people will do just about anything to come out top. Given of course that nobody cheats, just how clever (or stupid) does the winning contestant have to be? When an illiterate waiter from Mumbai takes the top prize on Who Will Win a Billion becoming the biggest quiz show winner in Indian history, is anyone surprised that he is immediately arrested for cheating? For Ram Thomas Mohammed, a poor, ill-educated orphan, has answered twelve general knowledge questions correctly. But who was to know that eighteen years of street-life has equipped him with enough crucial wisdom to send him sailing through with not a single pass? In the company of his lawyer, Ram reviews the video tapes of his flawless performance and takes us on a tour of his amazing life ? from the day he is salvaged from a dustbin, to his meeting with a security-crazed Australian Colonel, by way of a career as a highly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal, to falling head over heels for a luckless prostitute. His life of strategy and survival leads to short and long-term friendships. One of these is with fellow orphan Salim, whose innocence and goodness Ram is driven to protect. After witnessing an act of unspeakable brutality that leaves him shocked to the core of his streetwise bones, Ram is moved to a grand act of vengeance, an act that will lead to the most unprecedented of coups ever to be seen by a television audience. In a beguiling blend of high comedy and touching melancholy, this tale cuts up and down and across all of life in twenty-first-century India. Its kaleidoscopic vision of humanity and the struggle of good versus evi
language: English
title: Q and A
titlecomplete: Q and A
characters: Ram Mohammad Thomas
genres: Fiction, Indian Literature, Asia, Drama, India, Romance, Novels, Contemporary, Adult Fiction, Audiobook
ratings_count: 34990
places: India, Mumbai
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Exclusive Books Boeke Prize
publisher: Doubleday