Empty spaces that cannot be filled by the reader

Udayan Vajpeyi's Hindi novel in translation is bold and original, but falls short of achieving its full potential

- Somak Ghoshal

The protagonist's past, and present, is trailed by women enamoured with him.

Hindi writer Udayan Vajpeyi is best known as a poet. Occasionally he has published short stories and essays but Qayas, recently translated by Poonam Saxena as Love is Participation in Eternity, is his only novel so far.

The lyrical, if somewhat awkward, title aside, it is evident from its opening pages that this is a poet's novel. Written in spare, tightly controlled prose, the story unfolds through vignettes, mostly in the form of internal monologues by characters who step in and out of the narrative. There is a semblance of a plot centred around a murder, but it isn't the crux of Vajpeyi's focus. Instead, his gaze is turned inward, on the secret lives of men and women, the desires they harbour and the unseen forces that propel them towards their destiny.

At the centre of Love is Participation in Eternity is Sudipt, a literary scholar educated in Paris, who throws away the prospect of a glamorous career and returns to India to work as a humble librarian in a small town. Exactly why he does so isn't fully clear, except for the fact that Sudipt is the archetype of the romantic idealist, who likes to walk around town with his nose buried in a book, the very act of reading being a sacred ritual for him.