Kalki goes to America to build a new life, restore his faith in people and rebuild his sense of identity. When reality bites, disillusionment and betrayal set in. Young Kalki believes his own mythology, trying to help the people who come to him, but of course he isn’t a god and can’t maintain the illusion.
His conniving father concocts a story that Kalki is the reincarnation of the blue-skinned Hindu god Vishnu, and installs his son as a healer in an ashram in Tamil Nadu to exploit the desperation of the poor, setting himself up for fame, wealth and power. (Nov.B lue Skinned Gods is an immersive and satisfying coming of age novel with an extraordinary central character: a young Indian boy named Kalki, who has blue skin after being bitten by a snake. Sindu’s stunning effort more than delivers on her initial promise. Sindu juxtaposes the closed world of the ashram with Kalki’s vibrant experiences in New York, where he performs with Lakshman’s band, the Blue-Skinned Gods eats meat and “figures out who I was and who I was going to be.” The imagery is vivid-“my body a colony of ants puttering in all directions”-and the slow-burn narrative by the end becomes incandescent. After Lakshman leaves the ashram, Kalki travels to New York City as part of a “world healing tour” conceived by Ayya to promote Kalki, where the cousins unexpectedly reunite, and Kalki learns some news that breaks his life in two. Kalki may be seen by strangers as a guru, but as a teen he is easily swayed by Ayya his cousin, Lakshman, who is his best friend and Roopa, whose condition eventually improves and with whom Kalki falls in love. After struggling to heal Roopa, a sick girl brought to the ashram, he doubts the prophecy about him. Kalki Sami has blue skin and black blood, and his father, Ayya, has built an ashram for the family to live in, where Kalki, on the eve of his 10th birthday, must undergo three tests, beginning with the performance of a miracle. Sindu’s marvelous coming-of-age story (after Marriage of a Thousand Lies) features a young healer in Tamil Nadu, believed to be an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, who eventually breaks away from his domineering father.
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