A Marathi novel that delights in its shock value

Sachin Kundalkar’s novel Silk Route, translated by Aakash Karkare from the Marathi Reshim Marg into English, is soaked in sexual desire—both as a source of pleasure and as an avenue for self-exploration. It tells the story of Nishikant, a queer protagonist whose coming of age is marked by encounters, dalliances, and relationships with various people when he leaves behind his cloistered family in Pune to taste forbidden intimacies in Mumbai and London.

This plot is likely to resonate with queer readers in particular because the move to a metropolis signals emotional independence and sexual freedom, not only in the Indian context but across geographies thanks to the anonymity available in a densely populated environment and histories of queer activism. In Nishikant’s case, the move to Mumbai is more of a push because his middle-class parents want to protect him from the supposed shame that has befallen the family after his unwed sister Nalini’s suicide.

The author’s creative sensibilities as a screenwriter and filmmaker are evident in his use of musical references to heighten the emotional effect of erotically charged scenes. Shiv, a man from Delhi, who is Nishikant’s hostel roommate at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, likes to watch himself naked in the mirror while listening to Eric Clapton. Through a flashback, one also learns of Pushkin—Shiv’s partner before Nishikant comes into the picture—who once played the veena in Shiv’s bedroom after a night of lovemaking.

When Nishikant works at a bar in London, he spots Elton John in flesh and blood through the glass wall one day while serving Srinivas—a customer who becomes a psychiatrist and his lover. With several other musicians such as Ravi Shankar, Miles Davis, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Max Richter, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong named in the novel, it seems as if the author has put together a playlist for readers to enjoy as a soundtrack as they relish his prose and journey with his characters.

This could have been a novel drowning in grief because Nishikant keeps losing people dear to him, but he seems too self-obsessed to prolong his mourning. What keeps tugging at his heart, however, is the weight of jealousy—an emotion that the author explores with curiosity rather than judgement.

When Nishikant learns that his sister was expecting a child with Nikhil—their neighbour, a local cricket star—Nishikant feels jealous. Though he is enamoured by Nikhil’s physique, especially his “strong, sinewy arms”, the envy stems not from sexual competition but from “a genuine longing for an experience that was, by nature’s design, beyond his reach”.

The same emotion comes up for inspection again when Nishikant meets Srinivas’s wife Suhasini in Chennai after Srinivas disappears. After making the reader feel sorry for the wife, the author makes a revelation that portrays her in a new light. In one of his letters to Nishikant, Srinivas mentions that Suhasini kills stray dogs who bark loudly by feeding them leftover sambar-rice mixed with poison. Whatever sympathy one feels for her threatens to disappear with this new piece of information.

The novel delights in its shock value. As a young boy, Srinivas peeps into a room where his grandfather and widowed aunt are having threesome with a French art collector named Jules. Witnessing this incident is traumatic but it also makes Srinivas question heterosexuality, monogamy, and the pretences within his family. Read the book to find out what happens to Nishikant—now a writer and professor—when Srinivas disappears. Kundalkar teases readers by leaving many questions unanswered as it is the first book in a promising three-part series.

Aakash KarkarebooksfictionMarathinovelpainpleasureSachin KundalkarSilk Route