We then meet Apu, who runs a detective agency. Nikhil hires her to locate S.K. Naidu—who turns out to be a cross between Salinger and Miss Havisham, lives in a fortress-like house and entertains no visitors. He is also Nikhil’s long-lost father and the author of Georgetown.
Delicately, Murari weaves Apu, her family and Nikhil’s estranged American wife, Renee, into the plot. Human relationships and a comic underplot that involves a crocodile in Nikhil’s bathtub intertwine like a tangle of bright skeins. The crocodile wraps itself around Nikhil’s heart and when, at the end, he releases it into a river, both their Homeric journeys come to a dramatic close. In terms of sheer audacity and the liberties he takes with his tale, few can match Murari’s arrangements of love.
