William Dalrymple narrates his search for the Sacred in Modern India in this book. He speaks not so much of the role of religion and the sacred in the lives of the urban middle class, but of the lives of specific persons who represent various ancient traditions in India related to the sacred. And through their stories, he examines how the sacred has adapted itself to survive in modern -- or at any rate, contemporary -- India. The book is structured in a similar manner to the Canterbury Tales, and in it, the author speaks of the lives of:
- a Jain nun;
- a male theyyam dancer belonging to a lower caste in Kerela;
- a devdasi;
- a Rajasthani bhopa who sings the sacred Epic of Pabuji;
- a lady fakir at the dargah of the Sufi Saint Lal Shahbaz Qulander; and
- a Buddhist monk, among others.
While there is little doubt that it has been written primarily for Western audiences, with its comparisons to not just Chaucer but also Homer --- comparisons which would fall deaf on the average Indian ear --- what is interesting about the book is that it isn't centred in either urban India or rural India, but in the in the metaphorical wasteland which lies somewhere between the two. And as such, it is set in an environment which the average Indian person may not easily be able to relate to although the book seems to give the impression that this is what contemporary India is all about. Perhaps this idea of ancient forms of the sacred mutating to survive in a modern world is what the idea of India being the land of elephants, myths and magic has evolved into?
The book also deals with the interaction of modern (rich, urban) India with traditional (poor, rural) India. For example, it narrates the story of a
bhopa or folk singer who sang for the so-called elite in their elite settings in urban India but died without access to healthcare in rural India, his brush with the elite notwithstanding.
Although "Nine Lives" does in fact deal with the sacred in "modern" India, it doesn't do so by looking at the usual manifestations of the sacred in modern India --- the daily
pujas and other rituals which millions of Indians perform at home, the software engineer who takes days off for a
darshan or
audience of/with a religious leader, the working woman who fasts endlessly to "obtain" a husband. Instead, the book focuses on the manner in which ancient manifestations of the sacred have survived in contemporary India --- often a manner with which the average contemporary Indian is only minimally aware.
