Review of Sundar Sarukkai novel | The sound of silence

Where do words go? What does it mean to follow a sound? Is ‘God’ just another word or our collective shorthand for ‘illusion’? Or is language itself the root cause of lies? These questions sound like they belong at a philosophy seminar, but in Sundar Sarukkai’s brilliant and highly unusual novel Following a Prayer, such are the queries posed by children mounting a valiant attempt to make sense of a disorienting world. Twelve-year-old Kalpana disappears into a nearby forest for three days after deciding to obey a casual utterance by her praying grandmother, urging her to ‘follow the prayer’. Upon her return, she refuses to speak, confounding her family, her teachers and the village at large —their possible explanations range from mystery viruses to violent crimes to divine intervention.