The Zahir

In the Arabic language The Zahir means 'the obvious' or 'unable to go unnoticed'. Though there are various other meanings to this particular word in different patois across the world, here in the story it indicates the author's obsession and obduracy to find his wife who left him suddenly without any explanation.

One day the well-known parisian author's long and tranquil married life got perturbed when Esther, his wife of ten years disappears without a word to him. Initially the authorities suspects the author himself for some kind of foul play and immures him. But then he got a clean chit as one of his wife's friends admits to have slept with him on day of Esther's disappearance. Though released the author is vexed by a long chain of unanswered questions. Was Esther kidnapped, killed, or did she simply abandon a marriage that left her unfulfilled? All these questions were gnawing his the author constantly.

Then one day Mikhail, the man with whom Esther was last seen, finds the narrator and tells him that his wife is alive and doing well. With the help of Mikhail the author tries to reach to his lost wife, who has become the Zahir of his life. The question why Esther left him when everything in their life seemed to be normal and well-shaped will keep on nagging him unless he gets an answer to it.

In the process the protagonist is forced to re-examine his own life, marriage and love. With the help of Mikhail the author travels from Paris to Almaty and then some unknown and unheard of village of Kazakhstan. This is not only a physical journey but this is also a journey where the author strives to explore various meanings of love and life. As the publisher of the book heralds, this is a haunting and redemptive story about the dark side of obsession, a thoughtful meditation on faith, celebrity and marriage -- and their relationships to freedom and creativity.

One last note:
I was grossly shocked when I came to the end of the book. When the narrator meets his wife after almost 3 years he finds that she is pregnant with somebody else's child. What an anticlimax to the search of the Zahir!