An Apartment Building as a Microcosm of Indian Society: New Historical Reading ofManil Suri'sThe Death of Vishnu

Abstract

Manil Suri’s novelThe Death of Vishnu(2001) has tried to represent the different aspects of contemporary India. Vishnu, the odd-job man in a Bombay apartment block, lies dying on the staircase landing. Around him the lives of the apartment dwellers unfold –the warring housewives on the first floor, the lovesick teenagers on the second, and the widower alone and quietly grieving at the top of the building. In a fevered state Vishnu looks back on his love affair with the seductive Padmini and comedy becomes tragedy as his life draws to a close. By including such events within a single apartment building Suri has observed the follies and miseries of Indian society. Through outThe Death of Vishnu is a constant co-mingling of the physical, material and mundane with the spiritual and divine. Covering only a twenty-four hour period this “soap opera” scenario is transformed, however, into a microcosm of society that provides Hindu insights into the nature of reality. In short through the window, of a Bombay apartment building Manil Suri creates an intimate and intricate portrait of life in a great Indian Metropolis.