Introducing Kakapee

KAKAPEE The Self-actualizing Operation that Changed the Genes of a Crow’s Shit M C Raj (A simple storyline of the novel) This novel is written in realistic fiction style. It is about the rise of a Dalit belonging to the Unseeable people in India. It is a hero centric fiction novel. The hero of the novel is the son of totally illiterate parents and their family lives below poverty line. His peers in the school push him into ghetto by nicknaming him ‘Kakapee’, Crow’s Shit. But he finds gems there through sheer hard work and self-actualizes himself. He beautifully brings the impossible into the realm of possibility. Many try their hard luck on him. They get angry fearing that his life is a statement on them. He uses the same technology in building up the historically oppressed people through small successes leading to bigger and bigger successes. The psyche of success transforms a people oppressed all along by a wounded psyche. He sheds all his belief systems obtained from the Catholic Church and takes up to Cosmic spirituality and the spirit of the ancestors. The story ends with the hero going to the US on one of his many international trips and on his return the plane in which he travels nosedives into the earth. Down under the earth he encounters the spirits of the ancestors of indigenous communities and merges with them. His energy waves cannot remain under the earth and he comes out as waves and fills all those who are in a resurgence to establish dignity and peace on earth. The first chapter starts with a bang. It is a success story of the hero and his indomitable wife who together declare this Millennium as Ambedkar Era, the era of the Dalit people. It is achieved through heavy odds including threats to their life from the caste forces of India. But the Dalit people stand solidly with the hero and make the event a grand success. This leads to a flashback on the origins of the hero. His unseeable ancestry is traced also scientifically to give a picture of what it means to the international readers. His family is helped by European missionaries in a leprosy hospital and the family converts itself to Christianity. The young man decides to become a Catholic priest in his desire to achieve excellence in life. The sisters in the hospital help him to join the seminary. He faces caste discrimination in the school as well as in the seminary. But puts up a stiff challenge through his enormous potential and energy level. He excels in studies, sports, music and drama. He is promoted to distant places for his studies and becomes a monk. With contemplation and reading he becomes a philosopher of sorts and gains international recognition already at a young age. During his study of theology he becomes familiar with Marxism and literature on the Prophets. His worldview becomes radical and his interpretation of the Bible becomes controversial. He becomes a priest but within six months obtains permission from Rome to live in a slum, work and earn his living and do his higher studies. He becomes very popular among the slum people but is haunted by Church authorities as they see his new existence as a negative judgment on

them. The Church bans him. He marries Deepa, a radical woman. Together they start a Dalit Movement and establish a saga of success. But many international forces are up against them. The many sexual encounters that are narrated in the novel will provide a juicy stuff to the readers. He takes on the mighty international groups and both of them march ahead with their achievements with the removal of untouchability practices in their area of operation. They create new models of rights and dignity. In this whole process the hero becomes a prolific writer and philosopher. It is in his attempt to establish solidarity for dignity and peace that he merges with the cosmos and assumes a new form of life. In the womb of Mother Earth he becomes an ancestral wave and enters a large procession of Dalit and indigenous women of the world to establish world peace and dignity for all people. This novel is very informative on the ways of life and multi-cultural connections in India. The style of M C Raj’s writing is very special and adds a lot of flavour to reading habits.