Vinayak

inayak, a Sahitya Akademi-award winning Hindi novel, as a sequel to the author's first novel Gobar Ganesh, according to the novelist, is the "pratismriti" (remembrance of our national-cultural memories) and the katha or narrative of India as a civilizational state. Its multi- perspectival, multi-centric kathanak (plot), involving characters representing a cross-section of Indian society, is marked by engaging and interesting debates on such issues as gender-politics, cultural imperialism, casteism, communalism, the Kashmir-question and the condition of Kashmiri Pundits, sustainable development, ecological consciousness, swaraj or decolonization of mind, role of "Breaking- India" forces camouflaged as NGO-activism, and the all-embracing nature of the spiritual that subsumes the secular, the significance of purusharthas or cardinal principles of life, etc.