THE DARK UNDERCURRENTS
Followers of stock exchange news are familiar with the calm, authoritative voice of Udayan Mukherjee, respected for his clinical analysis of market trends and restrained predictions. They will be pleasantly surprised to make acquaintance with another side of this wellknown journalist, whose debut novel explores the dark areas of buried emotions and uncomfortable family secrets.
A painful journey into the lives of two brothers and the consequences of a terrible secret bequeathed by their parents’ unhappy past lies at the heart of this story. The narrative flits between homes, cities and time to present a nightmare that haunts the protagonist and, like lava, singes whatever it touches. The novel is also a morality tale about the dark side of success and wealth.
In his avatar as an observer of Dalal Street, Mukherjee is bound to have witnessed dozens of cases of burnout and damaged lives. It is, after all, the curse of wealth and success that they extract a horrible price from those who chase them. Perhaps this is why he is so credible when he tracks the descent into the protagonist’s soul-searing loneliness, a spiral that leads to insomnia, alcohol dependence and an inability to put down roots. Mukherjee’s documentation of the hollowness that dogs the protagonist and his near-suicidal experiences send a shiver down the spine of the reader, who may have witnessed a dear one grapple with such a state of depression. All of us are familiar with the dark circles that line the faces of our bright young things. Their restless lives stem from an inability to let go and spend time with family and friends. Unable to forge human connections that will give them joy and fulfilment, they float from one place to another haunted by an unnamed dread that they have no one in this world.
Therapists and counselling, sleeping pills and a loss of interest in work and relationships inevitably follow and the book ends on as dark a note as it begins.
Not a cheerful or breezy read, nor even a great existential novel, its pace and honesty grips the reader, making it almost impossible to put it down.