Rao does not turn a blind eye to history or its record of cruelty, to Birkenau and Buchenwald. He does not neglect politics, economics or history. But to challenges that the human being faces anywhere—whether in Paris, London or Calcutta—Rao’s answers point inward, from the exterior to the interior, from the outside to the inside, from the world to the self. Each one of us, he seems to say, must perform this little operation on ourselves—to dissolve ourselves into the nothing from which the whole world was created. To put an end to ourselves and thus to solve, once and for all, the problem of humanity. Deny yourself to become That. To me it is not only this philosophy or its viability that are important, but the enormous energy and artistic integrity with which it is mediated through 700 pages of The Chessmaster and His Moves. It would be unfair to accuse this philosophy of being unreal, because the characters are real, their suffering is real and their concern with the human problem is real.

After Chessmaster, Rao published an extraordinary little book, On the Ganga Ghat (1989). It is a collection of eleven stories, all of which are set in Benares. In an opening note to the reader, Rao says, ‘These stories are so structured that the whole book should be read as a single novel.’ Once again, we see how he pushes the form of the novel into a new direction. Indeed, the question arises, how do these seemingly different stories make one novel? After all, each story not only seems complete in itself, with its characters confined to its own boundaries, not spilling out into the others. There is no common protagonist, no obvious connecting action or theme. If so, then what unites them? It seems to me that the real protagonist of these stories is its setting, Benares.

This ancient, timeless city emerges as the true hero of the narrative. But what does Benares stand for? Why is Rao obsessed with it, both as a real location and as a symbol? It figures, in one way or another, in nearly every novel of his. Benares, it seems to me, stands for non-duality, for that principle which overcomes death. Death, of course, is a constant presence in this holiest of holy cities. But unlike elsewhere, death here is not just welcome but auspicious—a release, a liberation, moksha. In fact, what dies in Benares is death itself. That is why it is so important in Rao’s scheme of things. It is Benares, which as a sort of miniaturized India, stands for the Truth of this world. It can unveil the mystery of human life and misery, by showing the way to transcendence through the dissolution of the ego.