The Yogini

Translated from Bengali, the translation from Tilted Axis offers up a prologue on the idea of “niyoti” which is simply translated as fate in the novel. In India however it carries a lot more nuance. It is both the absence of agency but can also imply a state where the individual is merely under the illusion of being bound to their particular path.

So we find ourselves in Calcutta where we meet Homi, a hard-driving TV producer one year married to her equally successful husband, when she is approached by a ragged old yogi she perceives as her fate. Visible only to her, she finds in him a strange attraction and disgust. Homi then meets with a palmist and heeding his vague pronouncements nopes out of her middle class life surrounded by selfish climbers. It's fate! Or maybe it's a justification for abdicating from her mounting responsibilities.

We've even got a bit of a fairytale ending complete with a beneficent godmother courtesan. We leave Homi to choose whether to embrace her fate, or is she just f**king with it. Either way I enjoyed this modern day fable dripping with metaphor and a slightly hallucinogenic glaze.