‘Pebble to Monkey to Extinction to Cyclical Evolution…’
Meenakshi Shivram
PEBBLE MONKEY by Manindra Gupta. Jadavpur University Press, 2022, 124 pp., 300.00
December 2022, volume 46, No 12

Pebble Monkey! What an enchanting title, you think. You open the novella to a quaint world–at 12,000 feet, on a snowy mountainous terrain, live ibexes. One ibex dislodges a pebble. The pebble is thrown up in the air, and when it falls it bounces into the tunnel. Soon afterwards, someone can be heard swimming in the water… (p. 11) and as the pebble swims and comes out of the tunnel it becomes a monkey, bearing the ancient elixir of life. In my opinion, the interesting part of the story ends here.

This is what follows: Guess what–surprise, this monkey is male and sets out in search of a she-monkey. This monkey is a vegetarian and an Advaita being–an integrated self. Then monkey meets a hermit. Hermit tells him about Brahma, sat-chit-ananda and asti-bhati-priya, and abstinence and celibacy and about the need to discard material possessions. Monkey is in love with a doe–Doenna. This is inter-species love and cannot have a future. Then Monkey meets five men and a woman.

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