Beset with a deep sense of alienation, Alexander, a middle-aged
Scandinavian mathematician with a bent for the metaphysical, begins to
question everything, from his failed relationships to his declining
career prospects and the attainability of happiness. On a cold winter
night, a seemingly random encounter with a stranger obtrudes onto him an
unsought responsibility over a dog and a series of bargains with
eccentric individuals. Caught up in piquant musings on the crossings of
poetry, mysticism, and mathematical paradoxes of infinity, he is
unknowingly initiated into a unique esoteric group of seekers and
newfangled anchorites. The experience turns into a springboard for a
daring new escapade into a life of self-discovery and reconciliation. In
an effort to find answers to his troubled love affairs and ambivalent
relation to religion, the once reticent loner undertakes a spiritual
experiment in the East. He leaves his comfortable but predictable life
behind, and becomes a seeker. From the yoga ashrams of India to the
Buddhist monasteries of Burma, this spiritual novel takes the reader on
a pilgrimage through the thicket of human insecurities and aspirations.
Alexander learns to navigate the perilous landscape of modern
spirituality, con-masters and authentic teachers, and as a result he
discovers, articulates and manifests his own response to the baits of
love and faith, radically different from the ones he had once held.
