Slowly, sensually, The Alchemy Of Desire, hypnotizes and serenades the reader into an aesthetic adventure into the realms of the carnal, caressing the erogenous zones of the mind, while exploring the crests and troughs of the body. The wily alchemist, Tarun J. Tejpal, quietly brews his potion, a heady concoction of passion and ambition, and slips it past the reader’s throat, taking him body and soul to the giddying heights of the Himalayas, up the meandering ribbons of concrete cutting across the green and the brown. Every time the body of the protagonist soars in desire, the reader is transfixed, his body in limbo, his mind on wings, climbing the highest peaks, and falling over, time and again.
Like an audacious adventurer, Tarun Tejpal delves into the depth of the human spirit, and anatomy, to fathom the nature of human desire, its elements, and its alchemy. Just like the ancient practitioners of alchemy, he strives for an eternal cure all—a panacea for the cravings of the human body and the soul. Speaking through the central protagonist, writing in first person, he deconstructs desire, and discovers that it seeks the fulfillment of both mind and body; it is the elusive elixir that could turn metal into gold.
Tarun weaves an enrapturing yarn around a young couple, gloriously in love. They are the “First Things”, the naked primordials, who know nothing else but love and desire. The central character is a teller of stories, espoused by a passionate listener, his wife, Fizz, fuelling the husband’s creative and carnal instincts. His desire to be a successful writer is only matched by his desire for her. Tarun efficiently captures the spirit and the restlessness of his era, while at the same time, his unnamed protagonist repeatedly fails in his grandiose attempts to capture the same in a novel.
The desire of the protagonist is an entity in itself, a living, breathing multi-faceted organism. The reader knows the protagonist through the sinuosity of his desire only. It guides and shapes his life, determining its contours, and being determined by it. It forms the background score of his life, a diminuendo of submission at one time, a dominant falsetto of passion at the other. An idyllic lilting hum, or drowning it, a vicious fortissimo that threatens to obliterate everything in its ascent.
When writing, he’s an enigma to his wife. When words fail him, he reaches for her, drowning in her, his incompetence and failure. The nakedness of their love takes them to the virgin terrain of the Himalayas, where they find an abode to embody their love and passion—for each other and the written word.
It takes another creature of desire, from an altogether different era to bring his desire to its right denouement. As he stumbles upon the diaries of an American adventuress, the organism of his desire takes a violent turn, breaking free of its shackles. Pursuing the treacherous trail of his enigmatic fantasy, his desire for a vulnerable Fizz starts to ebb. The vicious fortissimo. Bewildered, clueless, searing with hurt and pain that only a lover can inflict- her misery is palpable. As her world hits a nadir of despair, an air of melancholy envelopes the reader too, demonstrating the writer’s hold over the reader.
But she knew her role. Every time the mellifluous jangle of Brother-the typewriter-announced a new inspiration, she receded into the shadows, drowning herself in its music, only to surface to give him his rewards, whenever his regimen allowed, or to be his solace, whenever the music faded. This time, his musings would last years, and the pain would be unbearable- there would be no music for a long while- so, she goes away, only to resurface when he has found the determining inspiration of his life. This time, the music would not fade away, this time, the regimen would last till the final roll of parchment has been inked!
As you move close to the ending, it dangerously hints at an almost Bollywood-ish kitschy finale, but as it smartly avoids that, realization dawns upon the reader that it was never a prospect. The lack of drama can be dissatisfying for some, but it is what made me exult and clinched the novel for me. One can't help but wonder if the writer has made Fizz's character too weak and the husband too nonchalant, but as you retrospect, you realize it’s not only an ode to their love, but a perfect and befitting closure. Instead of relegating her to just an object of his desire, it lifts her character and showcases its inherent sinew, her understanding of her husband and the larger scheme of things, giving her the identity she deserved.
The setting is the heart of India in the last quarter of twentieth century- a restless era, mirroring the restlessness of the characters- shifting between Delhi and the lower Himalayas, the latter representing the elusive station that the characters seek in their lives. Tarun Tejpal makes full use of the erudite journalist in him. Yes, there are times when the journalist threatens to overpower the writer, but mostly, he deftly intersperses the narrative with his views on the goings-on of the time. Be it colonial India or the uncertain eighties and nineties, he captures the ethos adroitly. The description of the local terrain is breathtaking and brilliant in its accuracy, capturing the minutest details, using the flora and fauna as props to support the narrative.
Tarun's words strike an instant chord with every reader, whether it’s the desire to find your apt station in life, or the naked desire for the love of your life. And doubly so, if you are a burgeoning writer. The portrait of a writer is constructed with the sensitivity of a sculptor- capturing the frustrations and the angst. Equally sensitive is the handling of women’s sexuality. He starts with the eternal love versus sex conundrum, but knows they are on the same side.
The narrative- lucid and imaginative, prose in appearance, poetic in effect- is one of the strongest points of the novel. It flourishes when the narrator explores his relationship with Fizz, but does get a little tedious in the sub-story charting the American’s life. The boldness may take you by surprise initially, but the aesthetics are topnotch, lifting it way above the vulgar or the voyeuristic. Nabokovian in nature, it comes straight from the firebrand editor of Tehelka, a national weekly paper in India that rocked Indian politics a few years back. It distinguishes him from the clique of Indian writers, spawned by the success of Chetan Bhagat, and puts him straight into the league of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh and V.S. Naipaul. To sum up, a highly satisfying and engaging debut novel.
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—About our writer:
Shikhar Singh is a B.Tech. graduate in Computer Science. He is a reader with an insatiable hunger for the written word and boasts of an eclectic collection adorning his book-shelves. He loves to play around with words; he writes on varied topics and is not afraid to take up new and challenging ones. Watching movies, swimming, playing billiards and table-tennis are some of the other activities that he enjoys.
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