Book review | How to secretly woo your best friend!

For such a short book, Saikat Majumdar’s The remains of the body has a powerful impact. It took me about 10 days to read this almost novella, not because I didn’t like it, but because it conveys the feeling of love so real and so immediate that it overwhelmed me at times.

The book’s thin plot focuses on a single question: What happens when one of three closely connected people who love each other is trapped between the other two after they separate? Especially when that one person is attracted to both of the others? The answer, as Kaustav, the book’s main character, must learn, is that there is no answer until the truth is spoken.

Kaustav, a PhD student in Canada, has had a deep bond with his friend Avik since their childhood in Calcutta. Avik has always been the rock for Kaustav to lean on, first thanks to Kaustav’s indifferent family and later thanks to Kaustav’s unspoken feelings for Avik. For Avik, who doesn’t think very deeply and is a little afraid of sex, Kaustav is also a rock: his friend’s experiences, sexual and otherwise, are the learning experiences that Avik can’t bring himself to have.

Yet it is Avik who marries, and his wife is Sunetra, a brilliant researcher who gives up her beloved field to become an office worker. Avik lives in the US, seeking the American dream and finding it in his big house and fancy car. Kaustav is a welcome guest in this house, a family member, beloved uncle of Sunetra and Avik’s son, and Sunetra’s partner in domestic life when Avik indulges in his man-boy behavior with other friends.

But one day Sunetra can no longer stand Avik and turns to Kaustav instead. And then Kaustav has to find out his truths. Who does he love? Who does he love? Really Love?

Me, The remains of the body is a fascinating work. Although the story is about love, there is no romance in it at all. The book is written in physical terms that many people would find repulsive. Avik has hairy nipples and a big belly. Sunetra is so bony that sex with her is like being stabbed in the back. No romance novel uses such descriptions. But love? In love, these things are mentioned and they don’t matter. Love is just love. And I can truthfully say that I loved this book, even though the physicality of the writing made me cringe.

The remains of the body

By Saikat Majumdar

penguin

P. 170; 499 Rupees