I am Uthaman. Dead - but not dead and gone. Dead and here. Invisible, an inaudible whisper. Living, longing, loving, losing, all over again....my final 41 days of earthly abode. Friend of the darkness, fading in the light, the light of all the good in me keeping me afloat.... The bonds of love shimmering weightless in the dark, holding me together, filling my soul. The longings, ever so sweet and bitter, dragging me, lifting me, helping me flee. The baggage of 39 years, did I get away light? My soul, already burdened with cares worth a full life, painful to sift through...is less more or more less?

Uthaman died--suddenly, and without drama. On a regular working day, in his office, came a sudden and irreversible stop to an ordinary life. But as with all expat deaths, he got more attention in death than he ever did in life. The long journey back from Bahrain to his beloved village in Kerala, the soul and the body together in a cold airplane--numb, but not yet numb to the pain of separation. At home, a village is in mourning at the untimely demise of its favourite son. Radhika, his loving wife and mother of his only son, Vishnu, is beside herself with grief. As is the rest of his family - his sisters, brother and nieces. 41 days of traditional prayer rituals are to follow - 41 days to prepare his soul for the final departure. Uthaman's soul is pulled in all directions by the love, the grief and the unrequited longings of the living, as in these final days they hold him down to an earth that is no longer his. The evergreen memories of his childhood, youth, and adulthood unfold each night, taking Uthaman along well loved paths of life: man and nature, friends and foes, victories and disappointments. Each night the memories pull him in a deadly hug, bringing on a medley of emotions, each night also taking the sting out of them: an uneasy peacemaking...and none more than those of Ruby, his innocent love, lost, yet never forgotten, not in life, not in death...

Death- the ultimate conundrum and the absolute certainty. When alive, life and living capture our attention; we spend our entire lives trying to make a success of the few years we are allowed, even as we know the ultimate triumph belongs to death. Lurking behind every moment of life, what is death? Our constant companion or a once-in-a-lifetime visitor? And what happens when we finally succumb to death..when body and soul cleave? Dust goes back to dust , but what of the rest? What of the soul? That unique part of ourselves, the core of our being, what happens to that soul. No one has a definite answer, but an uneasy consensus exists - the soul lives on..... ask how and where, and the consensus ceases. Some believe in heaven or hell, some believe in reincarnation, most believe, in nothingness - an eternity of unconscious nothingness..... But, some cultures do believe that there is a period of preparation for the soul before it undertakes the final journey, and traditionally, that period is believed to be the 41 days after the death - a sort of purification and letting go, freeing the soul for the onward journey on the 41st day. And it is this little known grey area between life and death, this intermundium - that is explored by Shaji Madathil in his novel. The crucial 41 days, when the soul, separated from its earthly bondage, stands watch over its former vessel – learning to untangle itself from it. The longings of a lifetime that need to be left behind - and some longings are seared in the soul, and as in life, they excoriate, they flagellate – over and over, when ripped out of their earthly habitat. Uthaman, as his name indicates, a good man, who tried to live a good life, but had to face challenges and obstacles to his simple hopes and desires, finds how difficult it is to forgive oneself- for unintended mistakes, for lost opportunities, for lost love - in death, as in life. But, he finally finds peace with the truth that life is never fair, that one is not always rewarded for good deeds, but is almost always punished for even the smallest mistakes. Madathil takes us through the struggles of Uthaman in riveting, poetic prose, set in the enchanting beauty of his village in verdant Kerala, nature’s allure playing a large part in shaping the life of Uthaman.

The people in Uthaman's life, his parents, siblings, friends, love, wife, all are drawn in vivid colours that stay with the reader for a long time. It takes extraordinary skill to portray the struggles of a soul; devoid of matter or form, yet undergoing the agonies of the flesh. The readers are in for a treat as the novel explores the philosophy of love, loss, pain, happiness, the magical beauty of nature, and the nature of existence - and non-existence. The book is also a treatise on the apparent futility of modern life, where greed, jealousy, and selfishness, keep us running, panting and exhausted to the finishing point, a certainty that would still have been waiting for us had we sauntered towards it, taking in the small pleasures along the way. Some pains are inevitable, but sad are those lives that never stopped to love, to care, to wipe away a tear, and smile together. Because when we take that final walk, it will be those simple pleasures that would form the shield around us, leading us to that place of beauty, the soul of the Universe. Loved in abundance, from birth to death, still a void in me, yearning to be filled. Can one ever have enough love? Is longing always the footfall in front, and love the one behind, never able to catch up? In stillness, with both feet together, we realise there was no need to run; we just had to stop and give in to love. From behind my invisible veil, I see all the love in my world, my longings fading, taking the back foot, love coming to the fore--until I move back to disappear over the edge, love and longing still chasing, but I, Uthaman, beyond their bewitching enchantments…