An exclusive excerpt from Traveling with God by Devarshi Sarogi, Translated from Bengali by Moulinath Goswami(The Antonym Collections, 2026)
God was sitting by the edge of a large body of water, conversing with me between feeding the fish. He probably thought talking to me was the best way to get me out of this overpowering grief. Words carry not only reality, but insight as well, which we may never gain just by observing reality. Words teach us things that reality fails to do.
“One does not always get what he prays for. Even if he gets it, always remember, I never gave that to him.”
The colorful fishes kept nibbling at their food. Perhaps through a fish’s eye, the entire universe appeared to be made of water, I wondered.
“However, I never deny one wish to anyone who prays with a genuine heart. That is, if needs be, he embraces death happily. Isn’t this the greatest act of compassion one can have from me? No matter how big the calamity is, it ultimately ends in death. Besides, one who has learned to smile at death is actually immune to all other calamities. As a result, he quits praying. He realizes I have been steadfastly fulfilling his prayers. Why do I grant this prayer only and not the other ones? Because I am imprisoned in my own regulations. Granting everyone their wishes would stop me from enjoying the antics of life. If I grant a particular wish of one person, then I would have to fulfill the wishes of everyone, or else I will be accused of being partial. Not a single person wished to die willfully during the war. Even the soldiers wanted to kill their enemies in order to survive. Had I answered everyone’s prayer-which in one way is simple, yet complex and equivocal in another way then this war would never have happened.”
The butterflies hovered over God’s head as if they were a vibrant tuft of clouds. The sky was somber blue. We were ambling down the gentle slope. Some people had lit a fire on a square patch of land, performing Yajna. The hot air was heavy with the smell of ghee. Draped in spotless white, the men chanted in a language, much of whose roots, conjugations, and infinite verbs had not been inducted in Sanskrit grammar yet. Both of us inched toward the fire. Smoke enveloped God’s face. Walking further down, we arrived at a village. The mud huts did not have flat terraces so that they would not collapse under the weight of snow. Somebody was playing a flute in the distance.
“Keep this in mind,” God said, “sorrow doesn’t have an entity of its own. It is simply the absence of joy. However, joy has an independent existence. It is autogenous. It can be briefly overshadowed by grief bút can never be destroyed. Just as darkness has no existence of its own because the sun is constantly burning.”
“I now realize why you remain unflustered despite so much suffering, cruelty and sin in this universe,” I commented as I walked away from the shore.
“Why?” God asked with calm detachment.
“Because you know all of this is only fleeting. At the core of human existence, there’s only joy, which is permanent.”
“It is there not only in humans, but inside the inanimate as well.”
Previously, these words would have startled me. Deep down, I might have disbelieved him, holding him to be inviolably inscrutable. I had developed this opinion about him from traveling in his company all these days. His close company had given me more pain than pleasure. I could never accept that despite his presence there was so much ruthless suffering, meaningless death, and destruction all around. To me, he would appear as a whimsical tyrant or a creator who had lost out to his own invention. As if his own creations, armed with lethal weapons of his own make, were charging in, to prey upon him. However, the experience of living in a cave for the past few months had radically transformed me. For the first time, I realized that life on Earth rested on two truths-apparent and real. God’s dalliances never ended until he conjured an illusory spectrum of apparent truth over the actual truth. For the first time I realized God was infinitely merciful. And for the first time I found myself actually enjoying his company.
Excerpted with permissions from the author and the publisher of Traveling with God by Devarshi Sarogi, Translated from Bengali by Moulinath Goswami (The Antonym Collections, 2026)
Disclamier: This page contains affiliate links.
About the Book
Devotion, evolution, sorrow, joy, freedom, death–the ever increasing number of things we don’t really understand. Everyman walks with God through History, as they explore one human condition after another. Sometimes you just have to pose a question out loud for the answer to come to you. It makes you wonder though: where does that answer really come from?
Author’s Bio
Devarshi Sarogi was born in Bangladesh (then East-Bengal) in 1955 and emigrated to West Bengal in India. He studied English literature and started his career as a journalist and art critic for a Bengali newspaper. Afterward, he joined academia. His first novel came out in 1988.
What sets him apart as a writer in contemporary Bengal is that he keeps reinventing his style and telling while also staying close to his deeply spiritual perception about human existence, time and the idea of someone supreme holding it all together. Informed by an innate sense of economy and balance, Sarogi keeps his expressions measured yet crafts gloriously imagistic passages. In his long literary career spanning over five decades, he has penned thirty novels and numerous short stories.
His writings have garnered much acclaim from serious readers of modern Bangla literature. He has been awarded the prestigious Bhasha Bharati Samman by the Government of India, the Somen Chanda Award, and the Galpomela Award for his contribution to Bengali literature. Presently, he lives in Kolkata.
Translator’s Bio
Moulinath Goswami writes poetry in Bengali – his mother tongue as well as in English. Writing is his escape, his meditation. Though primarily a poet, he writes short stories and novels in Bengali as well, and does translation in Bengali and English.
His Bengali published works include collections of Bengali poems: Dayal (2020), Kuashar Tukrora (2021), and Jibon Ebaar Jatismor Hok (2025); a collection of Bengali short stories, Poranbiler Maath (2022), and Anandadhara Ebong Ekmutho Golpo (2023). His translated works include Nawabgunj (2023), the English translations of the Bengali poems of Jhelum Tribedi; Selected Short Stories of Shyamal Gangopadhyay (2023); Selected Short Stories of Imdadul Haq Milan (2023); A Long Shadow And A Sleeping Cat (2024), the translated short stories of Amar Mitra, and Chime of Time (2025), a co-translated yearbook of Bengali poetries of 2023.
He has participated in the Multi-lingual Writers’ Meet organized by Bharat Bhawan, Bhopal in February 2020, as an invitee for the prose reading session in Bangla. He is the winner of “The New Normal: A Poetry Competition on Changing Times” held by Oxford Bookstores, Poetry Paradigm and Excellor Books in the Bengali poetry category.