Review : The Hero We Need: Why Dr. Mridula Sharma is the Best Protagonist of the Year
MANTHAN by Abhishek Mishra: A Deep Dive into the Architect of Memory
In a world of techno-heroes and gun-toting spies, the protagonist of MANTHAN, Dr. Mridula Sharma, is refreshingly grounded. She is an archivist who understands that “Archives are not cemeteries. They are minefields”. Mridula doesn’t fight with code; she fights with context. She is an academic whose weapon is her ability to connect a fragile, centuries-old bark paper scroll to the launch of a city-controlling “tower of impossible glass”.
Her brilliance lies in her methodical approach. After reading the prophecy of the “god without mercy” and seeing the “snakes under the road” (fibre optics) that mirror the text, she doesn’t panic. Instead, she starts a squared notebook, drawing a grid to map the Text against the World. She operates on hypotheses: Is someone performing the prophecy, or is it a blueprint?
Mridula’s quiet resolve is the heart of this “A Gods in The Glass City Saga” opener. Even as the consequences of her investigation hit close to home with the ritualistic murder of her colleague, Mr. Om Purohit , she doubles down on preservation, creating offline drives and leaving breadcrumbs for a trusted police inspector.
For readers who love protagonists like Robert Langdon or Lisbeth Salander—those who rely on pattern recognition and deep knowledge rather than brute force—Mridula Sharma is a compelling, necessary hero in the age of algorithmic certainty. Her simple belief that “Mercy means forgetting some things” stands as a powerful counterpoint to the city’s promise to remember everything.
