When Gods arrive without a history: Reading Kissagram

This is not a book that raises its voice. It waits, listens, and then articulates what is widely known but rarely spoken aloud.

How a god arrives without a history

Kissagram begins with an apparently ordinary event. In a corner of a government school field in the village of Anhari, a small idol appears one morning. No one knows who brought it. No one asks.

A watchman builds a brick platform, applies vermilion to the idol’s forehead, lights incense and begins to pray.

This is how gods arrive here — without lineage, without scripture, without resistance.

Gradually, others gather. Faith spreads not through sermons but through repetition. The idol becomes more than an object; it becomes a site, an address, a point of convergence.

Into this space steps Chhakori Pehalwan, a wrestler whose success becomes linked to the idol. Before each bout, he takes soil from its base and presses it to his forehead. He wins repeatedly — 56 victories in succession. Then, at a wrestling match in Nepal, he loses.

That night, the idol is broken.  Chhakori disappears.

From this moment, the narrative expands into its central concern: the making and circulation of stories.

When absence becomes a political resource

Chhakori’s absence does not diminish his presence. He reappears in speeches, rumours, demands for justice and calls for temple construction. His disappearance becomes a resource — a site of negotiation and a platform for power.

Political actors do not investigate; they occupy. One promises an inquiry, another a grand temple. Donations are collected, fear is manufactured, omens are interpreted and faith is mobilised.

Ranjan shows, with notable restraint, how democratic erosion occurs not through abrupt rupture but through gradual accommodation — through a collective willingness to accept that this is how things function.

No one asks where the idol came from. No one asks who destroyed it.

The school, once central, recedes into irrelevance. It lacks drinking water, electricity and urgency. The temple, by contrast, has lighting, cooling and reinforced infrastructure.

Children cross from the school to the temple for water.

No overt declaration is required. The shift is complete.

Education waits while faith is served

One of the book’s most disquieting insights is the manner in which religion overtakes education without confrontation. There are no bans, no closures. The school simply ceases to matter.

Funds that might have repaired classrooms are redirected to religious construction. Roads to hospitals remain neglected, while pathways to temples are improved. Illness is endured, ignorance is inherited, and faith is protected.

Ranjan does not editorialise. He allows the details to accumulate.

The implication is clear: faith promises redemption; education demands effort.

Caste, power and the arithmetic of elections

Politics in Kissagram is stripped of idealism. Leaders do not rise through policy or vision, but through caste alignments, symbolic gestures and calculated silence.

Elections are determined less by performance than by inheritance.

There are faint suggestions that younger voters may be attentive to alternative models of leadership. These remain tentative, unresolved.

The refusal to impose optimism is one of the book’s defining strengths. Kissagram observes; it does not console.

Justice, when it appears, is mediated through influence rather than institutions. Courts are distant, the police unreliable, administrative systems inconsistent. In this context, injustice is not exceptional; it is routine.

Stories within stories

The shorter pieces extend this thematic landscape.

Breaking News: The Saga of Indal Singh examines the performative nature of media outrage. Bolero Class and French Red Wine explore aspiration and class anxiety. Translation Gone Bonkers deploys humour to reveal cultural distortion. Miss Lily and My Country’s Story address fractured identities. Janki Bridge turns to geography as memory.

For readers familiar with regions such as Madhubani and Sitamarhi, the fictional terrain carries a sense of recognition. This proximity deepens the force of the critique.

Translation as ethical practice

The English translation by Satyadeep S Chhetri is a significant achievement. Prabhat Ranjan’s prose draws on oral cadence, regional idiom and understatement, presenting a challenge beyond literal transfer.

Chhetri’s rendering is measured and precise. It preserves rhythm without resorting to exoticisation and allows the text’s unease to remain intact.

The result is a translation that enables movement across languages without diminishing structural integrity.

Why this book matters

Kissagram: A Novella and Other Stories extends beyond its immediate setting. It reflects on how localities become representative, how belief intersects with governance, and how narratives acquire the authority of fact.

The work raises a series of implicit questions: What happens when inquiry gives way to belief? When development becomes spectacle? When justice becomes contingent?

It offers no prescriptions. Instead, it leaves a quiet but insistent warning.

When questions cease, erasure follows — gradual, almost imperceptible. Institutions fade, places are renamed, and truths are replaced by more convenient narratives.

What remains, ultimately, are stories.

Book: Kissagram: A Novella and Other Stories
Author: Prabhat Ranjan
Translator: Satyadeep S. Chhetri
Publisher: Bee Books
Price: Rs 450