400 Days (novel)

400 Days is the tenth novel and the thirteenth book to be written by the Indian author Chetan Bhagat. It is the third installment of the author's popular Keshav-Saurabh mystery series after The Girl in Room 105 (2018) and One Arranged Murder (2020).

400 Days

First edition
Author	Chetan Bhagat
Language	Indian English
Genre	Mystery, Thriller
Set in	India
Publisher	Westland Publications
Publication date	8 October 2021
Publication place	India
Media type	Paperback
Pages	352
ISBN	978-1542094085
Preceded by	One Arranged Murder

Plot

After the incidents of One Arranged Murder, Keshav and Saurabh are living with Keshav's parents in their new apartment in a gated community called Icon. Keshav has quit his job at Cybersafe, and is preparing to become an IPS Officer, while Saurabh continues to work and is determined to get fit as he is upset with his physical appearance. One day Keshav is called by his parents to meet Alia Arora, a woman also living in their gated community, whom they hope to be a suitable bride for him, but to their surprise, she brings her daughter, 6-year-old Suhana with her. Alia asks Keshav for his help to find her missing daughter, 12-year-old Siya, who disappeared nine months earlier. Though reluctant at first, Keshav's love for detective work sways him, and he is also encouraged by his parents as Alia promised huge payments regardless of the result. Keshav finally agrees and begins his investigations.

The story then moves to Alia's point of view, where she narrates the incidents of the past nine months and her marriage. Alia is married to Manish, a wealthy businessman part of the family's jewellery company. Manish's mother is consistently rude and demeaning to Alia, who married Manish when she was 18 and without his mother's approval. The family highly regards their priest and godman Shastriji, who has been associated with them for decades; with his support years earlier, Manish had convinced his mother to marry Alia. Over the years, Manish's mother has constantly offended and bullied Alia, resulting in Alia moving out of the joint family and going to live at Icon with Manish and the girls.

One day, Alia, Manish, Siya, Suhana, Manish's brother Timmy and his wife Rachna, and their two young sons, all gather at the grandparents' house for the day, and the children have a slumber party. In the morning, Alia sees that Siya has gone missing. The family questions everybody home, when Suhana suddenly reveals that she saw a 'Bad Man' abduct Siya in the middle of the night and threaten to kill her and the rest of the family if she made a sound, and recalls small details of his identity. Despite the police's efforts and intense media coverage, Siya is not found. After two months, Alia receives an Amazon package containing the clothes Siya was wearing when she was taken, now bloodstained, along with locks of her hair and a container of ashes. Believing that Siya has died, the police deem this a cold case; the family does not object as this repairs their reputation and business. However, Alia refuses to give up, believing that she can find Siya, and asks Keshav for his help.

Keshav and Saurabh work to re-question the family, and access and comb through Siya's phone data again. Meanwhile, Alia goes with Suhana to her hometown of Kochi to get some rest. Keshav follows her to try and get more details out of Suhana, as she was the only witness to the incident. As Keshav gains slowly Suhana's trust, Alia develops feelings for him as she and Manish have grown apart and resentful over the months of Siya's disappearance. Keshav reciprocates her feelings and their relationship grows closer over their time together in Kochi. Alia is on the verge of divorcing Manish, planning to marry Keshav once the legal issues end. Keshav manages to get more details of the abductor's identity from Suhana. She recalls that the Bad Man wore a lot of friendship bracelets and had a 'drawing' on his forearm, and that he smelled like a kitchen and his hair glowed in the dark.

Through Siya's phone data, Keshav and Saurabh find that Siya was messaging someone under the name of 'Roy' on Telegram, and at his request had sent him a few inappropriate pictures. With Saurabh's help, Keshav creates a fake Instagram account of a young girl to bait and trap Roy with, managing to get as far as setting up a meeting with him. On the day, with undercover police surrounding them at the meeting place, Keshav is faced with the sudden obstacle of needing a real girl to stand in for the bait Instagram account, and with Alia's help he uses Siya's best friend Parvathy. Unfortunately, Roy escapes at the last minute, as he had been tipped off that Parvathy had posted to her own personal Instagram account with the location stamped with their meeting place. Keshav and Saurabh are told to back off from the case and let the police close it back up.

A whole year has passed since Siya disappeared, and the family arranges a charity puja to mark her birthday celebrations. Keshav and Saurabh are invited, and during the puja, Keshav finds out that the priest Shastriji wore many holy threads on his wrist, and that he had a script tattoo on his forearm. His hair was shiny and smelled of mustard oil, a cooking ingredient, thus matching Suhana's details.

Keshav plants a GPS in Shastri's car to track his movements, observing that the car makes regular trips in the night to an abandoned sugar factory surrounded by sugarcane fields. Keshav enlists the help of Saurabh and Inspector Viren to follow Shastri, in the city's suburbs, He also applied mustard oil on his head, which is a common cooking ingredient, thus matching the details given by Suhana. Keshav plants a GPS in Shastri Ji's car and tracks his movements. He observes that the car makes regular trips in the night to an abandoned sugar factory in the suburbs of the city, covered by sugarcane fields. Keshav enlists the help of Inspector Viren and Saurabh to follow Shastri to the sugar factory, where Shastri finds Keshav and tries to kill him. Keshav is saved by his backup team, and they rescue a malnourished and terrified Siya. It is revealed through a chapter of Siya's point of view that Shastri is who abducted and hid Siya, and that he believed it was the call of gods for him to be united with Siya. He tells her that he had felt this way since she was born, and he conducts a religious wedding ceremony and sexually assaults her multiple times over the kidnap period.

A shattered Alia is finally brought her daughter back by Keshav, Saurabh and Inspector Viren, and Keshav is gifted 1 crore INR from the family for his work. A few weeks later, Keshav receives a message from Alia thanking him for rescuing her, and when he asks her to let him know if she needs anything else, she says he gave her her family back, which was everything she wanted. Realising that it would be incredibly selfish of him to marry Alia, he decides to move on and let Alia and Manish stay together for their children. Keshav and Alia meet for the last time and tearfully embrace, breaking up their relationship.

In the end, Keshav has decided to give up his IPS dreams. He makes plans with Saurabh to expanding Z Detective Agency, and to develop a child security unit within it.

Characters

• Keshav Rajpurohit: A budding detective preparing for the Indian Police Service (IPS) from the pressure of his parents. He had a small time affair with Alia Arora.
• Saurabh Maheshwari: Keshav Rajpurohit's best friend in the world and an engineer. He is trying to decrease his weight to be in a relationship. He is also a really good hacker and is one of the main reasons Keshav solves a case.
• Alia Arora: Keshav Rajpurohit's and Saurabh Maheswari's client. An ex-model, Manish Arora's wife, Siya and Suhana Arora's mother. She married Manish at the age of eighteen when she was impregnated by him unintentionally. Manish was 30 years old at the time. She had a small affair with Keshav Rajpurohit and wanted to marry him, but he rejected her saying that Siya and Suhana needed her at that time more than him.
• Manish Arora: Alia Arora's husband and Siya and Suhana Arora's father. He is the owner of Nava jewellers. He married Alia when he was thirty years old.
• Siya Arora: The main character the book is based on. She is the kidnapped, teenage daughter of Alia and Manish Arora. She is Suhana's elder sister and loves her vastly. She's a social media and phone addict.
• Suhana Arora: The main witness of the case. She is the younger daughter of Alia and Manish Arora, and the younger sister of Siya Arora. She is really good at board games as said by Keshav Rajpurohit.

Reception

• Sankalpita from Book Geeks gave it mediocre ratings, stating that its plot is not very unique, but that it is an easy read, especially for people with beginner level English.
• Sahana Hegde from Scroll.in gave the book a mixed review, and said that "despite its clichéd ingredients, Chetan Bhagat’s new novel is his most readable yet".