A new edition of Shiv K. Kumar’s novel, Nude Before God, has been released by Random House India, and so this is a good occasion to revisit this satirical work on death by the eminent litterateur. First published 30 years ago, in 1983, it nevertheless represents a contemporary take on a debate that has been of interest to humankind for centuries, central to which are questions like: What happens when we die? Do we come back in another form? How do our actions in this life affect the afterlife?

The novel’s central protagonist, an artist called Ram Krishna, finds himself grappling with these questions from a peculiar vantage point — that of one who is recently dead. His ability to flit invisibly from one point to another and to hear people’s unspoken thoughts makes for a bittersweet return to the land of the living as a disembodied presence. True to Hindu belief, the soul is allowed to roam thus by Yama, the Lord of Death, till the 13th day, after which its karmic account must be balanced and its next birth decided accordingly.
The tableaux that the wandering spirit encounters provide him with an expectedly truer view of people and events than what they seemed to him when he was alive. This is an enduring human fantasy — to view the world we inhabit daily in disguise or under the cloak of invisibility. We wonder how things might change if we removed ourselves from all the equations that currently make up our lives, and which seem immutable to us. Will everything collapse, or will life continue happily without us?
In spirit form, Ram Krishna has the chance to see for himself how his loved ones would fare without him. Apart from his parents and his dog, very few people truly mourn his passing. His wife and the man Ram Krishna imagines to be her lover are relieved to see him gone. His colleagues are already plotting at the funeral to take over his office as chairman of the Lalit Kala Arts Academy, while his mistress has too many things going on in her life to even attend his funeral. Others pay lip service to his greatness as an artist and move on, even as a man whose portrait he couldn’t finish before dying silently rues the money he has lost. Human beings are revealed in all their pettiness, and there seems to be little to celebrate in human nature as the spirit roams from one scene to another in its 13 days of freedom, eavesdropping on people’s innermost thoughts.
One of the most poignant scenes in the book takes place in Benaras, the ancient city of transmigrations, where death is met at every corner. Ram Krishna’s father takes the urn with his son’s ashes in a boat into the river to immerse them. The priest chants a mantra about the cyclical nature of existence, the fact that death leads to rebirth and rebirth to death “till the moment fades into eternity/the river merges into the ocean”. Even as the father wonders at the emptiness of words, however wise they might be, or however true, they do not mitigate his grief at all. As he thanks the priest, he learns that the priest has also lost a son not long ago. “And did this knowledge help you face it?” he asks the priest, whose simple answer is, “No”.
As the 13 days of his reprieve draw to a close, Ram Krishna must accept responsibility of his karmic account. He knows he has been drawn often towards lust and sin, and he attempts to justify his actions to Yama. As they engage in a wordy duel, Yama impresses his sins upon him, which include his preoccupation with painting nude women. “…you should have seen the divine image in a naked babe”, Yama tells him, chiding him for his “lechery and art”. Ram Krishna realises the wasted opportunity that his human life was, and begs for another chance. Whether he is given it or not would be too much of a spoiler and beyond the scope of this review.
The device of the invisible protagonist becoming aware of truths that were hidden from him otherwise might remind some of Charles Dickens’ The Christmas Carol, where Ebenezer Scrooge is shown the effects of his miserliness, both on others and himself, in future in a tableaux-like style similar to the one employed here. However, the context and narrative of Nude Before God is unmistakably Indian and has nothing of the cadences of Victorian England presented in Dickens’ fable. Moreover, there is a satirical intention that is apparent in the book, which further removes it from the morality tale that The Christmas Carol is to a large extent.
Rather than being moved to goodness, what is revealed to Ram Krishna is perhaps the fact of choice. That in every moment, we have a choice — whether it is in terms of behaviour or response or a thought, idea or action, all of which constitute karma. Our karmic account is forever being filled or depleted depending on the choices we make, mostly unconsciously, as we go about our lives. If we knew what awaited us in the afterlife, would we behave any differently? This question teases the mind long after the last page has been turned and the book put away.

Swati Chopra writes on spirituality and mindful living. Her most recent book is Women Awakened: Stories of Contemporary Spirituality in India.