Manasarovar

The early 1960s, also known as the golden age of Indian cinema. Satyan Kumar, reigning screen god, moves from Mumbai to the Madras film industry. There he meets Gopalan, a middling studio writer. An inexplicable connection forms between the two men across the chasms of class and language. But just as an enduring bond springs up, tragedy intervenes. Gopalan’s son mysteriously dies and his wife’s dementia acquires homicidal overtones. Both men flounder as they try to understand their roles in these seemingly random events that radically transform their lives. In spare, unburnished prose, Ashokamitran examines the finite human capacity to deal with pain and sorrow and the need for redemption if life is to go on. And in so doing, he etches a fascinating portrait of the times, with a cast of characters that includes, among others, Pandit Nehru and Meher Baba, the silent mystic. Brilliantly translated from the Tamil original by N. Kalyan Raman, Manasarovar establishes Ashokamitran as one of the most outstanding writers of contemporary Tamil literature.