David Davidar’s political novel ‘The
Solitude of Emperors’ painstakingly
looks into the psyche of
rioters
and tries to find answers to the complex
problem of
rioting. Putting forth an interesting theory he attributes the
phenomenon of riots in the country to abandoned jealous gods waiting in the
margins. The abandoned Gods wait patiently for the power of the new deities to
fade so they can once again rise and cause extensive damage. This is because
the
rioters are nothing but the children of unholy Gods. This is an unusual
theory. But the mindless violence that convulses our cities and the periodic
eruptions of hatred are so inhuman that it does not seem that it can only be
the handiwork of some unholy God, or his spoilt brats.The narrator of the novel
is Vijay who lives in a small town in India’s Tamil Nadu. When his
servant runs away to join the act of demolishing the, now infamous, Babri Masjid of Ayodhya, Vijay writes a story
about him in the The Indian Scularist and soon lands in Bombay to work for it as a
journalist. His boss is Rustom Sorabjee. The demolition of the Babri Masjid
results in blasts and riots in Bombay
and an injured Vijay is exposed to the ruthlessness of the rioters. He is sent
to Meham in the Nilgiris on a working holiday to recuperate and at the same
time to report on the Tower
of God, a Christian
shrine. It is in this far away place that the inner terrain of the Bombay rioters is
explored. A petty politician Rajan, in the garb of a religious fanatic, wants to
take over the shrine to gain power. Vijay also befriends an outcast whose
description of Bombay
riots is excitingly different. He calls him the Emperor of Everyday.