The setting acts like a character in many of Benyamin’s novels. Rather than being a set of coordinates, geographical territories become sensorial place portraits that call out to you and drag you into their elusive souls.
In novels like Goat Days or Al Arabian Novel Factory , everything springs from the contextual surface where the collective and personal pasts collide. Body and Blood , Benyamin’s latest, unravels in a string of Indian cities — Delhi, Goa, Kasol, Chennai, Pune, Bhopal, Bilaspur. Surprisingly, instead of adding heft to the narrative, they end up as mere pieces in an unimpressive montage. The novel gives off a feel of wasted potential, as if the author simply didn’t try hard enough in spite of having all the right ingredients at hand.
Fellowship of the bling
Translated from Malayalam by Swarup B.R., the book dives into one of the most dangerous terrains — faith. Not the organic kind, but the mass-produced variant where illumination is all about material gain.
Christ talks about his ‘body and blood’ on the night before crucifixion: they are symbols of his self-sacrifice, sealing God’s communion with the chosen people, and as such have deeply spiritual significance. An evangelical enterprise with a wrong moral compass can be the perfect premise of a novel. Benyamin builds his story around a fellowship in Delhi, people assembling in the name of Christ to sing, pray and listen to gospels. Founded by Korean pastor Ko Hee-sung, it has “explorers”, “beginners” and “those who returned” along with a strong pastoral squad. Benyamin introduces it as “one of the many fellowships in Delhi — small, intense and full of goodness”. The members are entrusted with various tasks that include keeping a track of accident victims and finding new recruits.
Body and Blood opens with an accident that claims the life of Midhun, a member of the fellowship. The narrative progresses
through Ritu, Sandhya and Ragesh, his three friends who decide to pursue the incongruous facts associated with his death, opening up a Pandora’s box. Soon they realise that the fellowship with its promises of prosperity is yet another corporate that uses the ruse of religion to trap the faithful. As a character says: “This is the age of tele-evanagelists who travel the world in their private jets, charging crores for a one-hour session on TV. What business does that poor carpenter from Nazareth have here?”
Silly and serious
Though all three main characters caught in the web of the spiritual mafia have well-defined personalities, Benyamin leaves parts of their lives under-explored. Sandhya, a single-mother who was in a relationship with Midhun, retreats to her house in the hills to cope with grief. Ragesh, a Tamil man, and Ritu, a Malayali brought up in Goa, also take quick breaks to recover. In all this, we get the feeling that the author is using the characters merely to advance his non-linear narrative with multiple story arcs. While the characters’ motivations and back stories remain sketchy, Body and Blood also lacks that classic noir quality that could have lent an edge to the narrative.
Benyamin tries hard to blend the silly and the serious, but not very successfully. In a narrative packed with allegories and literary references, there is a man professing his love by wearing a girl’s trinket and a girl planting a kiss on the cheek of a stranger in a dhaba for solving a riddle. As the mystery over Midhun’s death deepens, the novel gets into the thriller mode but the sense of intrigue is not strong enough. The predictable plotline is unable to throw surprises at the reader.
Predictability also comes in the way of creating a dialogue on the workings of faith. Body and Blood ultimately lapses into clichéd juxtapositions of present-day chicanery with edifying examples of Christian charity from the past. Ritu comes across the story of Alvares, a pastor excommunicated by the Portuguese in the colonial era. During contagions he tended to the poor, cleaned their wounds and buried the dead. He was a healer, not a fake miracle worker performing to the accompaniment of high-octane hymns. Disillusioned, Ritu travels to Goa, right into a sea of true believers, and the fervent embrace of mainstream Christianity. The book ends on a peaceful note, but the sense of lack lingers on.
Body and Blood;
navamy.sudhish@thehindu.co.in
