Military missions

The New Game is a collection of four fictional operations carried out in the AfPak region to cripple the ability of the ISS (Intelligent Secret Service) — the Pakistani Secret Service — to function in this area. Each operation was called Ashrah, with the targets carefully chosen by the Research and Intervention Department (RID), the Indian Secret Service, and the National Security Service (NSS), the Afghan Secret Service.
Author Percy Vaid (pictured) is a Bombay-based leadership coach and management consultant who, in addition to his demanding job, has started writing about military history, an area which he is very passionate about and of which he is certainly knowledgeable.
But merely being a "military history buff” cannot guarantee successful fiction. The book comprises a prologue and four short military operations. All depict the "shootings, bombings and targeted killings” which the RID and the NSS jointly wage against the ISS in revenge for the losses they have suffered. The common factor in all is Ali who was recruited by the RID soon after his postgraduation. His skills are evident and it is no surprise that he has been chosen to supervise all the operations in the AfPak region.
In the first operation, Nadeem and Omar are instructed to eliminate Lt Gen Aziz Shaik, an expert in planning and execution of operations, who is seemingly irreplaceable for the ISS as his term has been extended. In the second operation, Vaid spends a lot of time giving the reader the background of Mohd Jaffar, an area commander of the Haq terrorist network used by the ISS to carry out its operations in tribal areas. The network is keen to tap his knowledge, proficiency as well as exploit his relations with the tribal leaders. Once again, his background could have been more brief and there is much repetition regarding his abilities and supremacy in the region. Similar criticism can be levelled against the information Vaid provides readers about the four individuals from the SFD (Special Forces Division) who have been chosen to carry out the mission.
Many of the events described are more or less similar and at the end of the book one is left quite bewildered and confused. That Vaid is an expert on military history cannot be denied, but a series of more or less similar encounters makes it difficult to classify the book as either a novel or a collection of inter-related short stories. Whereas much detail is given about the competence and the training of the individuals, Vaid does not really show their human side and hence one gets no indication about their characters, feelings, emotions or even their physical appearance. The vocabulary Vaid uses is quite amusing: "humint” for human intelligence, "techint” for technical intelligence and "exfiltration” which seems to be one of his favorite words.
The fifth episode ends with the warning that The New Game is "to be continued.”

FIRDAUS GANDAVIA