The narrator is Kirillov’s intellectual opposite, an adherent of Advaita vedanta. There are numerous interesting discussions on communism in the book, which add to its value as a social document, capturing the life of Indian expatriate intellectuals between 1920 and 1950. Also of interest is Kirillov’s relationship with Irene, which recalls Rama’s relationship with Madeleine. Numerous similarities aside, this relationship is more successful; this marriage lasts, and the couple have a child, Kamal. Soon after Kirillov’s return from India, however, Irene dies in childbirth, followed by her newborn daughter. Kirillov leaves for Moscow and is last heard of in Peking. The novel ends with the narrator taking Kamal, now in India, to Kanyakumari. Despite its humour, pathos and realism, Comrade Kirillov falls short of Rao’s three previous novels.

There has been a great deal of speculation as to the identity of Kirillov. Critics have wondered if the character is based on V.K. Krishna Menon or M.N. Roy. I myself have argued that, rather than these two possibilities, Kirillov might have been inspired by Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, Sarojini Naidu’s younger brother, who wrote a thesis on India and imperialism, which was presented at the Third Congress of the Communist International. Chatto, as he was called, was killed in the Stalinist purges.

When I asked Rao himself, he said the original was a man called K.S. (Krishnarao Shivarao) Shelvankar (1906–96), author of The Problem of India (1940), one of the first books by an Indian published by Penguin. He was born in Chennai, and educated at the Theosophical School, Adyar. He later attended the University of Madison-Wisconsin, the United States, and the London School of Economics. He was also a correspondent for The Hindu from 1942 to 1968. Shelvankar eventually became the Indian ambassador to the USSR. Before Independence, he was working for the communists in Europe. He had married a European woman named Mary. Like Kirillov, he had written an anti-Gandhian tract. The other important thing about this neglected novel is that it predicts the downfall of communism. The paradox of history, however, is that though this ideology has collapsed the world over, it persists in India. In the novel, on the other hand, it is seen as inappropriate for India, whatever be its use to the rest of the world.

It is interesting to note that Comrade Kirillov, first published in a French translation in 1965, was written earlier. Thematically, it represents the stage of negation before the spiritual fulfilment of The Cat and Shakespeare. Kirillov, as a communist and atheist, has negated the karma yoga of Kanthapura and the jnana yoga of The Serpent and the Rope by denying the existence of the Absolute; thus, his quest results in failure. The bhakti yoga of The Cat and Shakespeare, especially in the character of Nair, is the culmination of the various stages of spiritual realization in the earlier novels. Nair is the first character in Rao’s novels who does not merely seek Truth, but who has found it, who actually practices it.