‘The Grudges of Gajanan Godbole’: A crass protagonist, messy plot, and no clear convictions

I am not sure what to make of a book whose own narrative is so incoherent that it almost ends up being a portrayal of all kinds of class struggle and ethnocentrism, rather than a badly thought-out anti-hero story. Is Gajanan Godbole a victim of his circumstances or just plain horrible? Is there really racism at play against him for being a Marathi, or is he the racist one demonising other ethnicities? Is the character a perverted creep or is that the author’s own view of women and sex? There are so many themes to unpack in the book yet so little actual content, you can never be sure what the takeaway is supposed to be.

A second life

The Grudges of Gajanan Godbole, by Salil Desai, utilises the very critical time of just after the Covid-19 pandemic to set itself in. The book unfolds like an almost-dystopia at the beginning, when you wake up to see that only you have survived after an apocalypse. This is a hero whose origin story is contracting Covid and living to see the other side of it. He has spent numerous days in the hospital. He has, in his own words, almost seen death. The turning point of…

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