Leisure island: Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar reviews ‘Alpha’ by T.D. Ramakrishnan, translated by Priya K. Nair

A novel about an experiment with a foregone conclusion that made me wonder why the author wrote it in the first place

This is a mind-numbing novel. Thirteen people go to a “hitherto uninhabited island” somewhere in the Indian Ocean and spend 25 years there, “[going] back to zero — the beginning — and from there start once again. In other words, alpha, beta, gamma”.

The team is led by a professor of anthropology, who is just called “Professor”. Eleven of his 12 companions come from privileged backgrounds similar to his. They are journalists, academics, a geologist, a classical dancer, a painter, a former bureaucrat, and a doctor. Once in the island, which they name Alpha, the participants give up their languages and the knowledge they have gained so far to start afresh, to “live as primaeval beings, for twenty-five years, uncontrolled by the norms of society, without rules or laws”.

To me, the experiment seemed destined to fall apart. But it was interesting to watch how it does, combined with the insights of the surviving members. The motivations for such a bizarre experiment intrigued me: “The Professor believed that the new generation on Alpha would gain knowledge quickly and that they would be able to analyze and conceptualize on a higher level.” The participants, on the other hand, joined because “[m]ost of them yearned for a taboo-free, lawless life”.

The backgrounds of the participants are instructive here — the Professor is Upelendu Chatterjee, possibly a Bengali, Brahmin Hindu; the others have surnames like Desai, Bhatnagar, Menon, Mehta, Sarkar, Sharma and Dasgupta, giving away their social privilege. Perhaps to balance things out a bit, there is a lone Muslim character whom the others do not consider “their equal because of his low social status and lack of formal education”. Would someone from, say, a working-class background, a Dalit or an Adivasi have joined the experiment?

“Would someone from, say, a working-class background, a Dalit or an Adivasi have joined the experiment?”

For, one of their motivations is “a taboo-free” life. The word ‘taboo’  suggests a society bound by rules and regulations, a hierarchical society governed by considerations of caste and class. What if the participants did not practise caste differentiation in the first place? It is said about the offspring of the experiment: “They did not grasp the repetitive nature of seasons and the possibility of agriculture.” Well, that’s because they did not have farmers as participants, I thought.  Practically speaking, farmers and the working class simply do not have the luxury to go on whimsical trips planned by the privileged class.

There are more things to ponder. An experiment that requires its subjects to return to their primaeval selves would involve giving way to unbridled lust and sex. But sex on Alpha is forced, with “the stronger males… controlling the females.” At one point, sex is described as “a spiritual experience” and “a  yagna… with the chanting of mantras by a sanyasi.” All this sex is heterosexual, of course. Weren’t any of the participants queer or is it being suggested that all the ancestors of modern humans were straight?