Revealing the secret vocabulary of a city

Sundar Sarukkai's new novel explores the changing fortunes of Bengaluru through the lens of language, gender and a death

- Somak Ghoshal

A acclaimed philosopher Sundar Sarukkai's first novel, Following a Prayer (2023), was a strikingly original meditation on language, gender dynamics, and the magical power of belief. Although it shone for its light-footed prose and limpid narrative voice, the story had a darkness at its core, and ended on a tragic, somewhat frustratingly open-ended, note.

In his new novel, Water Days, Sarukkai returns to the themes of language and gender, with an exploration of urban history thrown into the mix. His gift for storytelling remains sharp and agile, informed by gentle comedy and witty understatement. The plot has a happier ending, though it also veers into the troubled recesses of human mind and motivation.

Water Days tells the story of Bangalore before it turned into Bengaluru, and the modern-day sprawl of people, horrific traffic and ugly high-rises it has become over the last 20-odd years. Set in Mathikere Extension, an old residential enclave near Yeshwanthpur in north Bangalore, the novel traces the shifting fortunes of Raghavendra, a security guard-turned-amateur detective, whose real ambition is to open a general provisions store. His humble dream is thwarted by an unwittingly fraudulent business entanglement with Nagaraj, a thug, who uses the alias of "detective agency" to launch a chit fund that robs hundreds of their life savings.