
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Rav Grewal-Kök's website.
My title comes from Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s translation of a poem by Kabir, the 15th Century north Indian mystic. Kabir tells us that men trap animals by offering them what they most desire (for a bull elephant, a mate; for a monkey, a pot of rice; for a parrot, a bamboo perch). “Beware the snares, says Kabir. / If the ship of Rama comes calling, / Board it at once.”
I’m not religious. But when I read Kabir’s lines for the first time, fourteen years ago, I sensed that they contained a profound truth. Our lusts, hungers, desires entrap us. If we don’t escape our endless wanting through love or art (or the divine)—if we don’t board “the ship of Rama”—we are doomed.
My novel’s protagonist doesn’t heed Kabir’s warning. At the outset he’s a mid-level government lawyer, happily married, with two young daughters. A mysterious CIA bureaucrat takes an interest in him, appeals to his ambition, and offers him something more...[read on]
Q&A with Rav Grewal-Kök.
--Marshal Zeringue