Seduction by Truth

The story perceives adultery in a fresh light, a strong departure from other stories on the same plot.The challenging ambition of the protagonist to live with his intellect rather than tradition tosses to the readers murky realities, like marital rape or deprivation of sex, latent in marriage, in turn, making them a part of the narrative.With an underlying streak of feminism-capturing the struggle of a husband to rationalize the adultery of his wife, trying to perceive her as a woman first and a wife later-the book has a special appeal for women.A unique feature of the storytelling is the weave of mythology and philosophy executed through the protagonist's encounters with three women of different religions, making it multilayered and lending it a strong flavour of non-fiction.Mukul Kumar is a civil servant of the batch of 1997. An Indian Railway Traffic Service officer, he is currently posted in the Ministry of Railways, New Delhi. A graduate of Kirori Mal College, Mukul has studied Public Administration at the prestigious Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi. His publications include an anthology of English poems, The Irrepressible Echoes (2012), and his first work of fiction, As Boys Become Men (2016).Shiva is handsome, an irresistible talker, well-off, lives in Delhi's poshest suburb, is a dutiful husband to the attractive Akriti and is a perfect father to their little son. So why is he the picture of disenchantment? Is it that not-so-uncommon human condition-boredom that sometimes accompanies fidelity-that haunts him? In Shiva's case, the discovery that Akriti has already found distraction with someone else frees him to look for excitement on his own-but with a mind conflicted between dharma and desire. Which is the path that he will choose to walk on? Shiva embarks on a journey to empirically explore different options-the sexually vibrant Sana and Mary, to name a few-but at the end, winds up with more questions than he started out with. To confuse things further, Akriti continues to occupy a tender place in his heart-as a woman first and a wife later. A slice-of-life tale, which is part reality and part legend, Seduction by Truth dares the modern reader to solve civilization's oldest puzzle-marriage.An exciting and thought provoking novel exploring the themes of marriage and adultery.