The Anatomy of Life

A narrative that's shaped like a fable, but in which we recognise the various features of life in India today.' - Amit Chaudhuri 'An unusual and readable chronicle of an abstract Poet's journey, veering from the salacious to the sacred.' – Romesh Gunesekera. The human self has come before religion, nations and boundaries - what is the self?. This is the question. The poet, just sixteen, moves to a new city with his recently-divorced mother. It is a new beginning; there is the promise of a new life away from endless domestic squabbles. But ghosts of the past still linger. The poet joins college, meets his first love, his sweetheart, makes new friends – through his relationships, separations and experiences we enter his world. Thoughtful, sensitive, observant, he is not one who shies away from life. He journeys into different spaces, both in the physical world and within the realm of thoughts. His relentless efforts are to know and to understand ideas - his own and those of the thinkers of the past. There are moments of confusion, contemplation, ennui, ecstasy, happiness and hidden amidst them lie little nuggets of truth and those rare moments of epiphany. But epiphany knows no time and place, it can come knocking anywhere, at any moment – be it on the balcony of a hotel in Benares or in the squalid room of a prostitute. Anatomy of Life is an engaging contemporary story of urban experience and a fascinating journey of discovery.