FOR THE PLAYFUL AND THE PASSIONATE
From the headiest of discourses on the structure of the universe to steamy interludes with beautiful campus coeds, THE WAYWARD BRAHMIN is truly a garden of delights. Rare is the work so much to offer the intellect...and the baser instincts, as well.
A new work by Harbhajan Singh Sandhu, The WAYWARD BRAHMIN tells the story of Mo, an Indian Brahmin with a doctorate in Physics and an indefatigable libido. After traveling to the U.S. with his friend Punjabi to complete his post graduate education, Mo finds himself haunted by the beautiful (and often forward) American women. Coming from a sexually repressive society, and possessing a "deep-rooted passion for the female form," Mo is primed for a series of exceedingly passionate affairs with a wide selection of campus coeds.
Between amorous encounters, Mo takes time out to discourse on "higher things." With his campus colleague, Artist, Mo discusses black holes, the Big Bang, and the structure of matter. Conversation even extends to the Hindu notions of reincarnation, after-life and cosmic consciousness. Mo is tested in his ability to defend against attacks on scientific thinking. He does so with a humor and grace that is delightful to share.
Meeta Chaitanya, in a HINDUSTAM TIMES book review writes:
WAYWARD BRAHMIN makes you take notice...written with atypical dexterity...transfixes its narrative gaze upon the reader with rare grit and grip.
...WAYWARD BRAHMIN is a strikingly original attempt to draw together concepts as disparate as theories of physics, Indian theology, sexual impulsions, to man's spirit of adventure. Black holes, Nirvana, Doppler effect, Bhagvad Gita, Ring Nebulae are all suffused as debatable subjects of interpretation in the characters' and the author's minds. Which in itself is remarkable...
WAYWARD BRAHMIN remains exhilarating and debilitating. It is worth a read because it evokes such disparate responses between pages, and also because it mirrors unerringly the author's intense commitment to a subject he clearly holds close to his heart.
Full review is given below.
WAYWARD BRAHMIN is available thru local bookstores and online: 1stbooks.com, Amazon.com, BN.com, Borders.com.
BUY WAYWARD BRAHMIN
Born in a small village in Punjab in northwestern India, Harbhajan Sandhu came to the US for post graduate study at Pennsylvania State University where he earned a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics. Thereafter, he taught Physics & Astronomy for over thirty years at various universities: College of William & Mary, University of Southern California, and California State University at Northridge, California. Currently he is Professor Emeritus of Physics & Astronomy at CSUN.
Wayward Brahmin, Sandhu's first novel, explores man's inner sexual yearning and the current notions in physics, cosmology and Hindu philosophy, in an interplay of intellectual discourse and eroticism. He enjoys reading, writing, and travel to exotic destinations.
Wayward Brahmin: Tale of sexual lust, philosophy, space-time, and a man's search for meaning by Harbhajan Singh Sandhu
Fiction
1st Books Library, US
Pages 242
Wayward Brahmin makes you take notice. An unusually striking title for a book that is written with atypical dexterity, Wayward Brahmin transfixes its narrative gaze upon the reader with rare grit and grip.
The book is first in lot of ways. This is the author's first novel, and he has for good, for bad, for both, written it in a singular fashion. First the simple component, the airy adumbration...Mo, a Brahmin from rural India travels to America for his post graduate education and his subsequent unrelenting tenure in the land of opportunity, thereafter, ever after.
Hereon, both the author and the reader scuttle ferociously through the inimitable sexual and, well, other, adventures of the hot-blooded, full throttle, energetic protagonist who, for some godforsaken reason meets (and beds without exception) every woman who comes his way. There is one in each chapter, by the way.
Only, each encounter, both in its ineptitude (initially) and vividness (thereafter, ever after!) is laced with a generous helping of Singh's unique brand of humour. Not entirely without erotcism, these episodes are absorbing because they explore and hilariously explode with the hypocrisy and false visage Mo and his ladies endeavor to extol while they strip themselves, and each other ravenously, shamelessly of those very edicts. And so, Mo remains an ardent Brahmin who thanks God after consumation, and Miss Black returns to marry a black from her own race, from fear of being ostracized forever.
Punjabi, the narrator is the empathetic compatriot who relates the vicissitudes of Mo's life innings, oops sexual meanderings, to an engroosed listener, Listener, and to the vexed reader you! If this makes the tale unconventionally, generically related to the Genesis of God, Adam and Eve, the author lets you think so. If this makes the tale an accidental perfidy of the long lost Morality play, he lets it be.
Anyhow, there are these prototypical characters, personifying, needless to say the browbeaten essence of what-the-name-stands-for (Punjabi, for instance hails from the sexually repressive rural India, never mind what you think) that roll on, relating the adventure of newcomer, a newcomer from the 'sexually repressed rural India' in an unimaginably advanced and sumptuously liberal American milieu.
That apart, Wayward Brahmin is a strikingly original attempt to draw together concepts as disparate as theories of physics, Indian theology, sexual impulsions, to man's spirit of adventure. Black holes, Nirvana, Doppler effect, Bhagvad Gita, Ring Nebulae are all suffused as debatable subjects of interpretation in the characters' and the author's minds. Which, in itself is remarkable. The book merits a read because of the way Singh manages to infuse interest into a fiction-subject as drab as clnical physics, through sexual rhetoric. Singh's mastery over the language he writes in is pleasantly edifying. It is the second element that saves the book from being classified as pornography wannabe, and rejected as a bad pornography wannabe!
As for the 'sexually repressed rural India'; think again. The sexual matrix in rural India is a feisty part of the so-called erotic-exotic-esoteric Oriental creed, in its vital form if you may. Also, whatever you may have us believe, not every blonde blue-eyed damsel in America is ready to jump into bed with a 'dark stranger' at the drop of a hat. And, despite all our dreamy notions and love potions, the authorial insistence on both these trends weighs far too heavy on the reader's discernment. The book suffers enormously for want of a believable, trite, terse thematic injunction.
Wayward Brahmin remains exhilarating and debilitating. It is worth a read because it evokes such disparate responses between pages, and also because it mirrors unerringly the author's intense commitment to a subject he clearly holds close to his heart.
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Sandhu is a born storyteller with a well-appointed if not always well controlled vocabulary and a sharp tongue. His book tells the story of Brahmin professor who leaves his native land for the United states and sexual liberation.
...Sandhu's work describes a modern Don Juan. He sees his hero with an interesting mixture of admiration, amusement and understanding. His breadth of mind adds immeasurably to the value of his book.
---Bob Williams: The Compulsive Reader
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An unusual book, a book of philosophy entwined with the narrative of a young man from India who travels to the US for college. Between bedding various girls, he discusses philosophy and the state of the world, which makes for a different type of read.
Although there are many love scenes in the book, they are tastefully done. There is a wealth of vivid description, from the sights, sounds and smells of the young man's village where he grew up, to his first impressions of America. The writer has a very poetic style which makes for a pleasant reading experience.
Worth a look if you would like to read something different from the usual.
---TWISTED TALES by Annette Gisby, author of Silent Screams.
In this fascinating interview, the author of Wayward Brahmin talks about his novel, his characters, the undrlying themes, the populist hunger for physics and astronomical knowledge, cosmology and a "theory of everything", the possibility of finding life onother planets, the relationship beteen the physical universe and spiritualism and his novels in progress.
Interview by Magdalena Ball
Magdalena: There are quite a few biographical similarities between you and Mo. Did you intend the book to be autobiographical?
Harbhajan: I really did not intend for the book to be autobiographical, but there are, no doubt, many biographical similarities. As Thomas Wolfe, one of my favorite authors said, in his "You Can't Go Home Again," "...if one wants to write a book that has any interest or any value whatever, he has got to write it out of the experience of life." Yes, like Punjabi and Mo, two main characters in "Wayward Brahmin" I came from a small village in northwesern India, and came to Penn State in the US for a post graduate degree in Physics. And like Punjabi, I taught Physics and Astronomy for many years before retiring. Like Mo, I often sat for lunch with an artist friend and colleague, one who frequently grilled me regarding Einstein's Theory of Relativity and other topics in Astrophysics and Cosmology. The trials and tribulations of academic life and the vagaries of its trivial rivalaries embellished in "Wayward Brahmin" are commonplace experiences on many college campuses, including the author's. So, in those respects, there are close parallels between the author and the main characters. The rest of it, generally speaking, comes from authorial license to embellish, and to fabricate an interesting story. Yes, I also, like Mo, once went on a sabbatical journey of loneliness and self-discovery.
Magdalena: What about Punjabi? Where did he derive from?
Harbhajan: Punjabi, literally speaking, is someone who comes from Punjab, a province in northwestern India, where I come from.
Magdalena: What came first, the characters and the story, or the physics and theoretical philosophy? Or did the two write themselves concurrently?
Harbhajan: I just started writing with a vague idea of the main characters, and what I might want to say. After that, the narrative took on its own life, sometimes going in a direction I would have never thought to go; no doubt, this is a common experience for writers; being possessed by one's imaginary creations. Since the characters were academicians, who are generally prone to speculation, a physicist and an artist in this case, the subjects of physics, cosmology, and theoretical philosophy became the focus of their discussions. In that respect it all came together at the same time.
Magdalena: What would you describe as key thematics of the novel?
Harbhajan: The underlying theme, not initially envisioned by the author, is, "to live by one's heart's dictates" as Punjabi and Mo did. Mo did not go home and marry a Brahmin girl in an arranged marriage, against his heart's yearnings, and he would not suffer academic subservience for the sake of early promotion. Later, he traveled to a distant arctic land in pursuit of his dream, to live happily ever after, or perish. In the philosophical discussions, there is an underlying theme of life's meaning or its meaningless-ness, and our insignificance in the vast infinity of the cosmos.
Magdalena: You are a professor of Physics and Astronomy. Have you always wanted to write a novel?
Harbhajan: Yes, absolutely. I always wanted to write fiction, and did some writing at various times. I had an article published in a college magazine (non-fiction) entitled, "Mysterious Universe," during my second year of college in India. I also wrote some short stories that have gotten lost, a play entitled "Vagaries of a Foreign Land," that dealt with humorous anecdotes of adjustment by foreign students in a new country. It was performed by amateur Indian Students Association student actors in a church theatre at Penn State; it was just a fun thing to do.
Magdalena: Do you think that there is a kind of populist hunger for more physics and astronomical knowledge?
Harbhajan: Yes I believe so. But it is beset by its technical complexity; it would be of great benefit to present it in popular, simplified, understandable form. When I was writing the science-related parts of "Wayward Brahmin" my wife, Dr. Carolyn G. McGovern-Bowen, author of a recent novel, entitled "Evil Seed," would offer a critique when the scientific discussion was getting too detailed or too boring. I would work to simplify it, or break it up with some lighter moments. Sometimes science can be more exciting than any fiction in its fantastic imagery and speculation; just look at the seemingly endless layers of structure in particle physics, and in astrophysics and cosmology: Big bang, black holes, quasars, matter, antimatter, parallel universes, untold dimensions of space and time...It is replete with the most fantastic speculation that can be found anywhere.
Magdalena: What issue in the areas of Physics and Astronomy plagues/interests you the most? Do you believe that a "TOE--Theory of Everything" is possible?
Harbhajan: At the extreme edges of physics and astronomy, science and science-fiction have merged together. The reason I say this is that in the current state of physics, many new discoveries are not discoveries in the ordinary sense, something you can see or touch or test by three-dimensional models; they are deductios made from a blip on a screen based on some theoretical formulae. In cosmology, the notions of "dark matter," parallel universes, and their theoretical formulations in multiple dimensions (ten, eleven dimensions) are really meaningless in our three-dimensional space. They are, for all intents and purposes, science fiction with the difference being that they have the backing of mathematically sophisticated and recognized scientists; ergo, they are considered to be scientifically sound.
"TOE--Thoery Of Everything" is possible only in this eleven-fold dimensionality; a mathematical construction, that really would mean nothing in the three-dimensional framework that we humans live in. So what of it? Nonetheless, these areas, although lacking test-worthiness and certainty, are of great interest to me, for their power of imagination, and in their conception of what possibly could be out there as a part of our cosmic existence.
Magdalena: Do you think that we will find life on other planets in our lifetime?
Harbhajan: I do not believe that we will find life, as we know it, on other planets in our lifetime, although there is no reason to think that does not exist on other planets. But to find these life-sustaining planets, or even to make contact with them, is a task that is severely limited by physical laws. We know that the Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has conditions suitable for life, and many of the nearby stars do not have planets around them. So the planets that might have life-supporting conditions would be at such great astronomical distances that they are not reachable by the means avvailable to us. It is like trying to find needle in a haystack, and the haystack is just too big. Surely, people have talked about the possibility of microbial existence deep under ice-sheets on other moons in our solar system, but the conditions suitable for life of our kind in those remote regions in our solar system do not exist.