Debutant novelist Santosh Kiro’s ‘The Eternal Mystery’ which forays into the market is not just another novel, but is a novel of its own kind that can truly be described as a deep peep into the tribal world and life, particularly the Munda world. And if famous author Paulo Coelho had the desert to plot his all-time masterpiece Alchemist, Kiro had the rich forest to plot his fiction.
‘The Eternal Mystery’ probably leaves deep imprint of the author’s own experience with the rural hinterland of Jharkhand, and brings to life the artistic narration of unsung master story tellers of the yore, in its vividness. The numerous legends that form part of his novels—all nicely knit into a big story, make the novel all the more interesting and thrilling, and one does not stop wondering where the protagonist is moving to, till one reads the last page.
Portrayal of Veer, the brilliant young scientist, the main protagonist of the novel as a young man who is driven only by logic and nothing else, and then slowly realizing that his logic fails to explain many things like birth, death and re-birth is interesting. But what is more noteworthy is the characterization of Ipil, the Munda girl, as a perfect blend of tradition and modernity, ever willing to join Veer in a quest to unveil the all-time mystery of birth and death, and eventually making him dance into her heart. At times, Kiro’s The Eternal Mystery reads like a parallel Ramayana and at other times the entire novel feels like another Munda legend, rich enough it the art of story-telling to grab the instant interest of even an average novel reader.
While the description of forest-life is vivid, dialogues between characters could well have been more tightened. However, keeping the background of the plot, the tone of the dialogues somewhat gels with the rural situation where villagers take you round and round before making their point clear.
The plot of The Eternal Mystery is based on Anjan, the hamlet in Jharkhand believed to be the birthplace of lord Hanuman and many things, including the rich mythology and the geographical sites that Kiro narrates in his novel, are actually present in the village. The literary merit of the novel apart, Kiro’s novel has managed to rescue hitherto non-descript Anjan village from its obscurity. He has managed to bring to the world the rich importance of Anjan village vis-à-vis lord Hanuman and legends related to his birth.
In any case, Jharkhand’s literature in English language is still at a very nascent stage though some young men and women have started authoring novels. And The Eternal Mystery could well serve as a milestone in the subject in the days to come. From this point of view, The Eternal Mystery must find a chance to breath in the readership market.