Chankya's Chant (72 page)

‘You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.’
Al Capone.

‘Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.’
Dale Carnegie.

‘God will forgive me. It’s his job.’
Heinrich Heine
.

‘The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.’
Jon Hammond.

‘The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.’
Oscar Wilde
.

‘The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.’
Gloria Leonard.

‘Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.’
Dorothy Galyean
.

‘A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.’
Adlai Stevenson.

‘Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side.’
Claude McDonald
.

‘Married men live longer than single men. But married men are a lot more willing to die.’
Johnny Carson
.

‘The only certainty life contains is death.’
Patricia Briggs
.

‘A man on a date wonders if he’ll get lucky. The woman already knows’ is a quote of Monica Piper.

‘The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his’ is a famous view of General George Patton.

‘Every battle is won or lost before it is ever fought’ is a quote from Sun Tsu’s
The Art of War
.

‘When you’ve got ’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.’
Charles Colson
.

‘I like long walks, especially when they’re taken by people who annoy me.’
Fred Allen
.

‘Eagles may soar high, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.’
John Benfield
.

‘Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.’
Oscar Wilde
.

‘All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening.’
Alexander Wolcott
.

‘When choosing between two evils, always choose the one you haven’t tried yet.’
Mae West
.

‘Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.’
Napoleon Bonaparte
.

‘Don’t be humble. You’re not that great.’
Golda Meir
.

‘A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.’
H.H. Munro
.

‘Politicians are like diapers; they need to be changed often and for the same reason.’
Mark Twain
.

‘We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.’
Henry John Temple
.

‘I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.’
Sir Winston Churchill
.

‘There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.’
Sir Winston Churchill
.

‘It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.’
Grace Murray Hopper
.

‘Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.’
Peter Tosh
.

‘A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.’
Joseph Stalin
.

What are the critics saying about
Chanakya’s Chant?

‘A gripping, fast-paced read, the novel is a true thriller in the tradition set by Dan Brown.’

— People Magazine

‘Political grooming and conspiracy remain at the core of Ashwin Sanghi’s historical thriller. Bloodshed, legal trials, betrayals, murders, assassination attempts and all that make this a page-turner.’

— Sakaal Times

‘Released in India to wide acclaim,
Chanakya’s Chant
is a political page-turner.’

— Business India

‘Ashwin Sanghi’s
Chanakya’s Chant
deals with the life and times of Chanakya in a credible yet gripping manner. Sanghi dexterously interweaves a story of modern India with Chanakya’s life. This book is a refreshing change from our usual derivative creative writing.’

—
Pavan K. Varma in
Tehelka

‘Ashwin’s rendition of the
Arthashastra
raises the hair at the back of your neck as you see these principles being used even today…’

— Hi! Blitz

‘With
Chanakya’s Chant
, which shuttles between the time periods of Chanakya, to the modern age, Ashwin Sanghi has relived an age and society that are long past.’

— The Times of India

‘
Chanakya’s Chant
is one of those rare books with a storyline that has the potential to be translated into a superbly cinematic and immensely entertaining screenplay. The tale is about the underbelly of national politics, which the book superbly exposes, where strategies developed by Chanakya thousands of years ago are still valid in the modern-day political scenario.’

— Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO, UTV Motion Pictures

What do readers say about
Chanakya’s Chant?

‘I have never read a more engrossing book on history—a novel that delves into the archives of interesting and fascinating tales relating to the life of the brilliant strategist Chanakya.’ —
Shail Raghuvanshi

‘The two parallel stories—though diff erent—use different strategies to arrive at the very same conclusion... the father of Indian historical fiction is here!’ —
Bhaskar Maji

‘Cunning, action-packed and outrageously twisted,
Chanakya’s Chant
pumps thrill and adrenaline on every page. No one can read it just once...’
—
Aman Nathani

‘
Chanakya’s Chant
is a well-paced political thriller that will keep you riveted. It should be in your must-read list…’
—
Mitul Kathuria

‘Sanghi’s brilliant characterisation of the modern-day Chankaya is a befitting ode to our Machiavellian forefather. Revenge has never been more candidly written about!’
—
Manish Agarwal

‘“Gripping political” thriller and “unputdownable” are understatements!’
—
Senthilkumar Rajappan

‘A tale well woven: with history and imagination… in a world buff eted by uncertainty and changing power equations, when will the “shikha” get untied again?’
—
Roshmi Sinha

‘When I read the first chapter I was breathless and I was hooked! Th e words “fast-paced” and “thriller” seem woefully inadequate…’
—
Baisali Chatterjee Dutt

‘When was the last time you read a book wishing you could start reading it again as soon as you completed it?
Chanakya’s Chant
provides one such instance of that pleasure.’
—
Amit Kumar Gupta

‘There are many moments in the book that will chill you to the marrow. Full of drama, like a chess game, it shuttles back and forth between past and present, as though on a time machine…’
—
Anjali Garg

‘With his second novel,
Chanakya’s Chant
, Sanghi takes you on an unrelenting underwater tour of the polluted river of Indian politics without ever coming up for air!’
—
Uday Gunjikar

‘The sheer magnitude of research that has gone into the book can be lived through as one reads the book. Ashwin Sanghi is India’s master storyteller!’ —
Sushil Menon