Manil Suris first novel, The Death of Vishnu, is a mélange
of social commentary, romance-novel lust, the mundane, the comic, and
the unbelievable. Blending fantasy and reality, the author focuses on
a Bombay apartment building inhabited by several paralyzed characters.
Each is unable to escape both his true state of mind and the role he
plays within the confines of the apartment. Suri forgoes simple realism
in favor of a multi-layered, mystical, sexual tale, attracting even
the most resistant of readers with his lovely, provocative prose.
The
Death of Vishnu skillfully captures the struggles of urban life, even
if its central religious metaphor jerks the reader back and forth between
reality, fantasy, past, present and future. In order to understand the
authors frequent mythological references, its best to brush
up on the basics of Hinduism. However, even those who dive into The
Death of Vishnu unfamiliar with the Vedas will be awed by the rare treats
of this sophisticated, elegant novel.
Suris work was inspired by the actual death of Vishnu, a man
who had lived and died on the steps of the authors childhood home
in Bombay. The Death of Vishnu depicts the slow, poignant demise of
the title character, an odd-job man whose limp body lies motionless
on the landing as the intertwined lives of the buildings inhabitants
unfold around him. The light shining through the windows plays on Vishnus
face as it passes through his closed eyelids and whispers his
past to him, during his final ascension of the apartment stairs.
As his old, weak frame rises into the air above, the spell of
gravity is broken, all the scents he has smelled are upon him, blending
together to form a new aroma, and his body changes into something
liquid and luminous. He turns into his namesake, the god Vishnu. According
to Hindu mythology, whenever there is an imbalance between good and
evil, Vishnu, the preserver, is born to re-establish order.
The deity of Vishnu has emerged from the old mans body to sort
out the emotions flying through the apartment block, which are completely
out of equilibrium. Suri explores the deeper workings of human nature
as he approaches an electrifying catharsis of illumination, love, and
loss.
Suris prose, with its glowing, sensual language and powerful
imagery, fluidly draws readers into the mystical world of the gods,
with its potent, spicy-sweet scents:
The perfume is so thick and potent that he can feel it press
against his face. Except that now it is the earth his nostrils are pressed
against, earth that is wet and aromatic, earth that smells sweet and
loamy
it is the land, it is fertility
it is an aroma he has
never smelled before, but recognizes instantly
Suri has called the Bombay apartment building in The Death of Vishnu
a microcosm for the ethno-political map of India. The novel chronicles
several relationships within the building: a pair of feuding housewives,
a bereaved widower who lives in his own past, lovesick teenagers, and
a Muslim couple whose marriage is failing fast. By focusing the chapters
of his novel on how these different characters interact with one another
and with Vishnu, Suri is able to show how religion, death, faith, and
unexpected changes all work together to define each persons individuality.
Religious issues distress several of Suris characters, including
the Hindu Asrani family on the first floor and the Muslim Jalals on
the second. Kavita, the beautiful, teenage Asrani daughter, must choose
between the high-class Hindu engineer her parents have selected for
her, and her true love, Salim Jalal. Kavita and Salims secret
relationship places a huge strain on the entire apartment community.
Vishnu agrees to become their alerter, and shares vicariously
in the dangerous lust and innocent beauty of first-time love.
Meanwhile, Salims father, Ahmed Jalal, in his deep effort to
understand the obstinacy and hysteria of religion, is determined to
experience this thing they call faith. Rejecting his intellectualism
in favor of enlightenment, he begins to leave his wife at night and
sleep wrapped up in the calm darkness of Vishnus body. It is at
these points in The Death of Vishnu that Suris novel crosses the
threshold between awesome and extraordinary. Suris detailed account
of Jalals vision of Vishnu is so exquisitely crafted that it almost
seems to be an out-of-body experience for the reader as well.
and then he was overcome with a sense of oneness, all touch and
feeling subsiding, all thought and emotion fading, the intensity of
the vision engulfing him in all its splendor, and once fully encapsulated,
an unexpected peace descending, a quiet, a solitude, a meditative calm,
and then, finally, sleep, pure and silent, unusually deep.
Suri uniquely plays on the capacity of food to conjure deep emotions
and memories of the past. Kavita often brings Vishnu his morning tea,
sustaining and comforting the dying man as he drinks the hot liquid
that infuses the cool morning air with scents of clove and cardamom.
With this offering to Vishnu, the old man recalls his love for the lusty
and beautiful Padmini, and his hunger for the affection that she would
not return to him. In Vishnus vivid memories, hot bhajia, or chili
fritters, remind Padmini of the times when her mother would fry up extra
batches because she loved them so much. Vishnu, wanting to touch
her, taste her, breathe her in, uses the power of food to entice
Padmini to expose her past to himevery bit she opens up is a step
towards the chance that she will love him.
However, food can also be a destructive force. The deep-set animosity
between Mrs. Asrani and Mrs. Pathak results from petty arguments over
miniscule amounts of ghee and gur. In these scenes, Suri recognizes
the futility of human life, often abruptly switching to descriptions
of Vishnus exorcism: his desertion of the body and his ascent
to immortality. The squabbles of Mrs. Asrani and her neighbor seem especially
trivial when compared to Vishnus deeper sense of being.
Suris literary debut is a stunning, poignant combination of starkly
contrasting worlds. The seemingly mundane Bombay metropolis is fused
with the beauty and depth of Hindu mythology in this impressive literary
accomplishment. Reading The Death of Vishnu, I was overtaken by both
fantasy and reality, and emerged with a new view of our own bizarre,
maddening, beautiful world.