Astride the Wheel

Astride the Wheel is a short and unassuming novel that tackles impressively large themes. A portrait of an individual spiritual journey, it also reflects the momentous changes in Indian society during the sixties, as experienced in the rural hinterland of the state of Orissa.

The story follows Sanatan Dase, a rural everyman who has to cope with the problems endemic to his class: managing his small and shabby plot of land, coping with the demands of his wife, the machinations of his neighbours, the envy and gossip and politics that mark village life, and above all, against a backdrop of radical social change, the grinding poverty of Rural Orissa.

All this changes when his wife dies, and Dase sets off on a peripatetic pilgrimage to India's holy places. The tone changes from social realism to spiritual biography, as Dase learns to find acceptance of his fate and stillness in the face of misfortune before he dies. What's truly remarkable about Astride the Wheel, however, is the way it weaves these two strands together into a poignant, inspiring and often surprisingly comedic whole.