‘The Remains of the Body’: What the fluidity of love, friendship, and liminality of desire can do

For half a decade now, Saikat Majumdar has been exploring sexuality beyond heteronormative desire in his fiction. In The Scent of God (2019), two pre-pubescent boys discover gay love in a hostel run by Hindu monks; in The Middle Finger (2022), ethical questions around mentorship are delved into through the prism of a tentative lesbian relationship; in his latest novel, The Remains of the Body, bisexuality is uncovered through a triangular bond between Kaustav, Avik and Sunetra. Taken together, these three novels could constitute a trilogy.

Though the protagonists are different in the novels, there are echoes of the previous narratives in The Remains: Kaustav and Sunetra both have shades of Megha (The Middle Finger) in them – in his disillusioning graduate experience of North American academia, in her dogged determination to find her authentic self; and Kaustav and Avik are strongly reminiscent of Anirvan and Kajal (The Scent of God) in their total immersion in each other in their teens.

Those days it felt that Avik and Kaustav shared a body. Every weird thought or feeling that came into one’s mind came to the other’s too, or if it didn’t, it had to be shared till the other person sensed it like his own feeling and they forgot who had felt it first.

What is distinct about...

Read more