The City of Devi

Manil Suri

Bloomsbury

Rs.499

Pgp 381

Manil Suri?s reasons for leaving Mumbai to study in the US over 30 years ago was not strictly to chase the American Dream. He was 20 and coming to terms with the fact that he was gay. In the India of that era, being homosexual was almost a criminal act while America gave him the chance, as he admitted, ?to investigate his own sexuality?. Having outed himself (his latest book is dedicated to his partner of 18 years), he was free to focus on other passions in two widely divergent fields, mathematics and fiction writing. He is professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland and his third book, The City of Devi, is just out.

His books have been a loose trilogy on the Hindu Trinity of Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma which he decided to change to Devi while halfway through the draft. His first book, Death of Vishnu, set in an apartment house in Mumbai, was something of a literary sensation and was long-listed for the 2001 Booker Prize. The Age of Shiva in 2008 was a satirical take on motherhood set against Indo-Pakistan wars and religious extremism. The City of Devi expands the canvas even more, love and sex in the time of war, albeit in an over-exaggerated and often bizarre manner.

The original draft had a 26/11-type terrorist attack as backdrop but Suri realised that he needed a bigger disaster to make the characters ?more desperate?. Desperate they are, as would anybody trapped in a city deluged with bombs, blackouts and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. What makes his books resonate with readers is his ability to create unique, memorable characters. As in Age of Shiva, this book has a female narrator, Sarita. Much of the book follows her search to find her husband, Karun, after they are separated by the destruction. Karun, an unappealing character with conflicting desires, one being his relationship with Jaz, a flamboyant gay man. ?The Jazter?, as he calls himself, is a Muslim, but his true religion has unashamedly been to have sex with men.

Suri has a flair for eroticism and here he takes it to another level; there?s the clumsy sex between Sarita and Karun, the homosexual episode after Karun is seduced by the glib, street-smart Jaz, as well as a threesome between the main characters, often incongruous in the midst of a desperate dash to escape death from bombs, terrorists or religious extremists. Indeed, the journey that involves the three main characters is a uniquely Indian dystopia.

Suri, despite having lived abroad for so long, captures Mumbai amazingly well, from the streets and bylanes to the people who populate them. He creates a surreal landscape to document the journey of his characters, all drawn like moths to the fiery figure of Devi, the patron goddess, who has materialised in person to save her city. It?s the kind of stuff a Bollywood scriptwriter on steroids would envision and Suri, for all his creative talent, satire and mastery of words, gets somewhat lost in the mayhem, the unlikely plot and the overdone sex. There are bombs all around, gangs of Muslim and Hindu fanatics, and all Sarita can think of is to buy the last pomegranate, used here as a literary symbol. This is also an unlikely love triangle in the midst of a Mumbai on the verge of nuclear annihilation and a crazed ride through the city, including on an elephant. Even Karun?s prolonged absence is never clearly explained and the overwhelming feeling is one of absurdity, albeit in a very Bollywood way.

This book may be satire of the most wicked kind but it is also disturbing and provocative. Politics, religion and terrorism are woven into sexual encounters, a mutually assured destructive war and a Goddess for the Ages. As pure Catch 22-type satire, it may have worked. As the final work in a trilogy, it falls between stools. Suri makes it all too Bollywoodian and the sexual politics eventually gets in the way of the plot so that it ends up as James Bond-meets-Ram Gopal Varma. With Suri?s novels, there?s always a grey area to do with where comedy begins and tragedy ends or the other way around. This book reinforces that even further.