The unspoken truth

Gurnaaz Kaur

After exploring college life, ambition, friendship, romance in his first novel As Boys Become Men, Mukul Kumar has focused on marriage, passion and adultery in his second one titled Seduction by Truth. “I’ve tried to traverse marriage as a social institution. What happens when the gloss of the inital years fades, there’s dip in passion? The constant conflict between one’s desires and the complusions of tradition that force one to seek sufficiency in the social orders created for marriage. 

My novel questions those traditions through its protagnist Shiva who sets himself upon the path of adultery while remaining within his marriage with the twin objectives of understanding marriage and discovering his desire as his wife has done,” the author shares. This story of Shiva and his wife Akriti, both of whom overstep their marriage, took two- and- a- half years to shape. And Mukul says, “It’s a universal truth and I know readers will identify with it. Many things are brushed under the carpet and we keep living with them. It fascinated me to work on this idea that we seldom talk openly about.”

Through the interplay of sex, trust and love in marriage, the novel tries to bring out that the truth cannot be the same for any two relationships. There is parallely a conflict between intellect and spirituality; the role of conscience, emotional intimacy is also highlighted. It weaves mythology and philosophy, reflects upon the Hindu, Islamic and Christian traditions with regard to marriage.

This bureaucrat who is working for the Ministry of Railways in New Delhi has questioned monogamy in this book. 

The story, briefly

Sex has faded away from the marital life of Shiva. But fettered by guilt he is not able to overstep his marriage for sex. When he discovers that his wife Akriti has already found distraction with someone else, it frees him to look for excitement on his own. But this corporate man in his early forties with a sophisticated intellect finds his mind conflicted between dharma and desire. Unsure of which path to follow, he takes recourse to reason rather than tradition and embarks on a journey to empirically explore different options but ends up with more questions than he began with.

Officer speaks

Being in civil services has given Mukul satisfaction of the highest level. “It is a tremendous platform where you derive a sense of service and are able to bring a change being an active part of the system. It is hugely prestigious, provides you good status, therefore I would say it is an interesting combination of authority and service depending on how you use the powers.”

gurnaaz@tribunemail.com