In the Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, “Just as a person uses and casts away garments, the soul will use a body and then caste it away in each lifetime”. The soul of Pran Nath is destined to wear several personalities in one lifetime!

The Impressionist begins with an unlikely encounter between Amrita, the daughter of a Kashmiri Pawn Broker and Forester, an English adventurer in the early part of the twentieth century. The result of this encounter is Pran Nath who is brought up as the son of Amrita and Amar Nath, a lawyer in Agra. The truth about Pran surfaces when he is a young teenager. Pran is immediately and mercilessly thrown into the street. It is at this point that Kunzru leads the reader on a voyage from the darkest corners of Indian society to the high-class life in England. He ends the journey with an expedition to Africa.

From the squalor of the streets of Agra, Pran’s destiny places him in a brothel where he is exploited because of his good looks. From here, Pran is transformed into Ruqsana, a boy-toy in the beautiful palace of the Nawab of Fatepur. He is a pawn in a sinister blackmail plot targeting a British official.

Fate conspires to help Pran escape to Amritsar, just days after the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre. Following this, he becomes ‘Pretty Bobby’ in Bombay. He is a manservant of a Scottish missionary during the day and pimp by night. Here he meets Jonathan Bridgeman, son of a British tea planter.

Bobby steals Bridgeman’s identity and uses it to travel to England. Here we see Bobby’s metamorphosis into ‘an Englishman’. As Bridgeman, he is inducted into a public school and introduced to the game of Cricket. He progresses to Oxford and has his first serious relationship.

Throughout his life Pran has questioned his own identity. Through all his experiences his curiosity into the nature of humanity grows to the point of obsession. It finally takes him into Africa as an apprentice to a veteran Anthropologist. His destiny is about to change once more.

If you are easily repulsed by the dark world of red light districts, child prostitution, Hijras and sexual perversion, you may find it difficult to make it to through the first several chapters of this book. When Pran becomes Bridgeman, Kunzru shifts gear, taking us into the good life of a young man with a large inheritance. To me this powerful book is a glowing tribute to the adaptability of the human spirit in the midst of almost impossible odds. History has shown us this survival instinct in the Nazi death camps and in the plane crash incident in the Andes Mountains. We see it again the life of Pran Nath, the Impressionist.

Besides the plot of the book I was very impressed by how Kunzu captures the violent atmosphere during the last days of the British Raj. I also liked his pen portraits of the Fatepur palace , the trendy Bombay Yacht Club and student life in Oxford.

We now see a growing trend among new writers of Indian origin to write plots set in British India. With eloquent language, creativity and vivid imagery these writers give us a glimpse into the atmosphere, lifestyle and social structure of this period. With this bold novel, Hari Kunzu makes a resounding debut to this ‘Historical Novel’ genre.

Rajiv, a regular contributor to Lokvani is a software engineer. His hobbies include public speaking and martial arts. He lives in Quincy with his wife and three daughters.

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