Every now and then comes along a work of fiction that captures in an uncanny manner, the spirit of the times we live in. Saikat Majumdar’s novel “The Scent of God” is one such book. Released earlier this year, it is the story of a young boy Anirvan as he matures emotionally, psychologically and sexually, within the confines of an all-boys boarding school run by a Hindu monastic order.
The novel is set in the late twentieth century when the protagonist is 12 years old, at a time when “life in the monastery was a fragrant, musical dream”. Like all the other boys, Anirvan is expected to cram for his exams, play soccer each evening and maintain a respectable distance from the impoverished Muslim villagers who live outside the school walls. But when news reaches him from the world outside that his grandmother—his only source of love and stability in an otherwise dysfunctional family—has passed away, he retreats into his grief and discovers “the scent of god” within the walls of the prayer hall.
In the years that follow, Anirvan’s intense desire to please continues to clash with the rebellious streak in his personality, as he grows and forays into the world beyond the ashram walls. The dream of academic success and the boy he loves, both recede from his life, as Anirvan increasingly turns towards political engagement. With his ‘magical voice’, he whips the crowds into a frenzy and relishes the rewards that come from being a lapdog for “the party that fought for the poor people’s land”.
Then quite unexpectedly, at the cusp of manhood, he comes face to face again with the boy he’d once loved, and Anirvan will end up making a decision that is both startling as well as deeply satisfying.
Written in exquisitely sensual prose and replete with memorable characters and unforgettable scenes, this novel is Indian writing at its very finest.
Excerpts of an interview with the author:
Cordis Paldano (CP): Many readers of the book (and even some reviewers) have been drawing parallels between the lives of Anirvan and yourself, in terms of both the schooling experience as well as the gift for words. How do you feel about this constant yearning on the part of the reader to scratch away at the surface of fiction, hoping to find a grain of truth underneath?
Saikat Majumdar (SM): I think it is natural to be curious about the relationship between a story and the lives around it, especially that of its author. Especially when it is a coming of age story, and the sex of the protagonist matches that of the author. And sexuality too—my publicist has passed on questions from journalists as to whether I identify as gay or straight, a question, I, however, think has no relevance at all in the reading of the novel as a work of art.
See, in the past, I was reluctant to own up to bits of my novels as being drawn from life; like the fact that my mother was a theatre actor when it came to talking about “The Firebird”. Somehow the fear was that I’d be thought of as a lesser novelist if one “plagiarises” from one’s own life. Now I know that is the most stupid fear, and that in it, I fall prey to the modern myth that the invented is superior to the real. In any case, I mix them up in my fiction: usually, the settings are real, a few of the characters are too, whatever happens to them is crafted.
CP: Talking of the real world, the reviews for “The Scent of God” have generally been effusive in their praise for both your craftsmanship as well as the themes you have dealt with. However, do you at times feel that the way the book has been marketed has contributed to tunnel vision among some of the readers/reviewers?
SM: Well, we saw that coming, right? A story of romance between two teenage boys set in a context of Hindu monasticism in 2019? The year after the abolition of Article 377, right on the heels of the Sabarimala controversy? Novels come from wild and private places—at least for me—and yet they have a way of getting entangled in the times. Even the nickname Yogi, for the protagonist Anirvan, comes from a real culture of hostel nicknames and was conceived long before anyone realized a saffron Yogi would become a chief minister one day. And then that burning cover by Pinaki De—he asked his breathtakingly beautiful model to cultivate a look of “delayed orgasm”, and no wonder the book ended up on all the “most awaited of 2019” type lists.
Also, as someone who has not been associated with queer activism in any way, I’m grateful for the love this novel has received in the queer community. At the same time, I’ve been told by booksellers that book clubs in posh suburbs have been turning away from it, finding the theme, not to their taste, and I’ve heard one book club member, an admirer of my other work, described it to someone else as “a book on homosexuality”. At the end of the day, the writer has to accept it all. A novel goes out in the world, into the free market too, and one can do nothing about its trajectory.
CP: One of the themes that stood out for me was how his mentors shape Anirvan’s quest for meaning and belonging in very different ways. Readers surely would have noticed that you, too, dedicated this book to two of your own teachers. Could you tell us a little about these teachers and the relationship you shared with them?
SM: The novel is dedicated to two of my mentors: poet P. Lal and short story writer Wendell Mayo. P. Lal, who revolutionised the place of English in Indian poetry, taught me in college—he also published my early short stories and novellas from his publishing house, Writers’ Workshop, Calcutta. Later, when I went to America for my MFA in Creative Writing, Wendell was my advisor— and what a sympathetic, affectionate advisor he was!
When I wrote the dedication, it had been almost eight years since Prof. Lal’s death. Wendell read the manuscript, so it was a different kind of delight inscribing his name on the book. The saddest part was that last April, Wendell passed away too. He was only 65, so that was a shock. After he received the book, he sent me a thank you note by email. It was a busy time of the semester, so I meant to write back to him later. Now I’ll never get the chance.
CP: The novel has been crafted exquisitely and manages to retain its literary value without compromising on accessibility. Did you have a hypothetical reader in mind while you were writing it?
SM: For me, language is always central to a literary work, as a writer as much as a reader—as I feel cinematography is to a film. What you identify as accessibility probably has to do with the way my relationship with language has changed over the years. Earlier on, when I wrote, its crafted-ness was obvious; over the years I’ve tried to move towards an apparent state of craftlessness in my language. As my friend, the Kannada writer Vivek Shanbhag said once, “craft must be like the nails in furniture; it holds the whole thing together but is itself invisible.” Writing in the young protagonist’s voice has helped cultivate a raw simplicity in my language.
CP: Talking of craft, how spiritual is the writing process for you? There is a beautiful passage in the novel when Anirvan visits the Central library and falls “in love with those little clothbound, gold-embossed editions” of novels. Tell us a bit about how you came to fall in love with literature.
SM: As a child, I used to be pretty good at painting. Then I started copying images from books. Before I knew it, I had stopped drawing and got lost in the book. Now I cannot recall how I left the image for the word. Perhaps the image never left me but took the shape of words. But I still regret giving up painting. It has made me abstract in a way I don’t always enjoy. But the love for words continued and combined an artistic instinct with an analytic one, so I’m now grateful to be a scholar as well as a novelist.
CP: There have indeed been so many momentous events surrounding the publication of this book. As you mentioned, portions of Section 377 were struck down right before “The Scent of God” went into press, but more importantly, a few months later, the saffron wave managed to reach the shores of Bengal. As you’ve said elsewhere, the ‘writer as an artist’ is indeed apolitical, but any thoughts from the ‘writer as a citizen’?
SM: There is something amoral about art, and while all art is apolitical, I find it hard to impose a normative political vision on the art I create. My novels take on the culture of politics, its atmosphere, and yet they are too deeply drawn to the dark and the unusual to amount to a progressive political trajectory. But as I said, the writer is a citizen too, and to this citizen-identity one can bring one’s talents as a writer to foreground the political position one believes in, as I think I do when writing an Op-Ed article, or teaching, or even writing non-fiction or scholarship.
But three years ago, when I started writing “The Scent of God”, a novel set in late 20th century Bengal about the middle-class, bhadralok-hatred of Muslims, the defeat of a mercenary Left, and the triumph of a Saffron Yogi, I realize I was in the unconscious grip of the times that dictate us. Looking through these lines today, I feel it was a long time coming, the Bengal for which the only way forward is the Right Way. Unless we can add to the firepower of Mahua Moitra’s voice and shut down her hecklers.