Kiran Nagarkar on his new novel about religious extremism and making sense of a godless world. |
A reputation for being media-shy and reclusive notwithstanding, Kiran Nagarkar is a dynamic speaker, as he showed during a lively talk at the Katha Asia Festival a few months ago. His speech punctuated by a series of endearing "yaars" and "maans", Nagarkar rushed, scarcely seeming to pause for breath, from one topic to the next. |
The importance of doing away with the idea of the Other, "which is a means of dehumanising and demonising people". The criticism he has faced because he writes in two languages (Marathi and English). The need to learn as many languages as possible, "to open up the dead pathways in our brain and expand the ways in which we think". |
The Nagarkar I meet at the Park Hotel is more subdued than he was on that occasion: he's just arrived from the airport and is tired, but must now prepare for several activity-filled days to mark the launch of his new book, God's Little Soldier. However, he's being stoical; it's all part of the book-tour haze. And besides, hasn't he been out of the public glare for long enough? |
It's been nearly a decade since the publication of Cuckold, Nagarkar's brilliant last book, and he's spent most of the intervening years writing, rewriting and revising his latest. Some of the tortuousness of that process shows in God's Little Soldier, a large, complex work that is packed with enough ideas for three or four novels. |
In fact, some of its most powerful passages are excerpts from a book within the book "" a story titled "The Arsonist", about the life of Kabir. These excerpts allow Nagarkar to voice some of his strongest concerns. "If I could teach you anything," says Kabir to his disciples, "I would teach you irreverence...towards yourself and your solemnities." |
Nothing can be more dangerous, Nagarkar repeatedly tells us, than to be too sure of yourself "" to be too certain about the rightness of your own cause. "That paves the way for intolerance towards others." |
The author of "The Arsonist" is a moderate liberal named Amanat, but the central figure in God's Little Soldier is Amanat's brother Zia, a religious fanatic and a man who is very sure of himself and of his relationship with God. Importantly, Zia comes from a tolerant, secular-minded family "" which helps Nagarkar make his point that terrorism doesn't grow inside a bubble. |
Nor is there an attempt to accuse any one religion of being a breeding ground for fanaticism. In an interesting move, Nagarkar splits the book down the centre, with Zia changing Gods midway: from being a Muslim extremist who once believed that "Allah is the only true God, the others are false", he converts to Christianity and the name Lucens. |
But this is, as Nagarkar points out, a red herring, "for his true religion is neither Islam nor Christianity; it's extremism." The one thing that doesn't change is Zia's moral certitude: his unshakeable belief that he is God's chosen one; that he has a Higher Purpose to achieve, never mind the dubious things (like getting into the arms trade) he might have to do to achieve it. |
Crucial to the success of God's Little Soldier is that Nagarkar somehow makes Zia not just believable but complex as well. This is quite an achievement, for Zia should by all rights have been little more than a caricature: the epitome of intolerance, standing for everything the author is opposed to. But Nagarkar makes an interesting disclosure here. |
"There are things about Zia I respect enormously," he says. "Even though he's deluded, you have to admire his tremendous energy and drive in doing the things he believes need to be done. He's far more pro-active than the liberal Amanat, who is the conventional good guy." |
"I can't identify with Zia, but I'm ambivalent about him. His intolerance makes me examine my own prejudices and reflect that maybe I'm intolerant as well "" towards intolerant people!" |
This is a complex line of thought, but complexity has always been integral to Nagarkar's work. As has subversion. "I thrive on bawdy, Rabelaisian stuff," he says. He originally wanted God's Little Soldier to be more humorous, but he soon changed his mind. |
"Zia is a character it's difficult to laugh at or laugh with," he says, "and I didn't want to trivialise him." He also deliberately stayed away from Zia's years as a terrorist in Afghanistan (which is only alluded to in the published version) "because I didn't want to write a conventional terrorist novel". |
Nagarkar doesn't consider himself an atheist exactly, but he's certainly irreligious. "I'm naïve," he says disarmingly. "I ask one very simple question: Why do we fight over our Gods? Gods come and go. Look at Indian mythology and you'll find so many "" Varuna, Indra "" who were once vital but are now passe. But in the meantime we have to live with each other, deal with the here and now." |
The Tree of Life adorns the cover of God's Little Soldier; its reflection in the waters below is a mushroom cloud. Towards the end of the book, Zia's last thought, again derived from the story written by his brother, is: "There is only one God and her name is Life. She is the only one worthy of worship." It's a grand utopian ideal, but Nagarkar believes in it "" and reading his book you believe in it too. |