Book Description

From post-colonial India to New York City, from the land of the Navajo in the Southwest to unforgiving orbital space, The Laughing God tells the astonishing story of Doctor Joseph RamuPandu, a half American - half Indian, brilliant psychiatrist turned holistic guru who follows an unlikely and often comical path in his frantic search for spiritual enlightenment. In the milieu of the newly born nation's conflicting religious traditions, the infant Joseph is raised concurrently as a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Christian, and becomes preoccupied by “Gods, demons, and spirits”. The collision of these powerful elements leads the grown-up Joseph to devote himself to a life of austerity and service. His attempts to minister to the sick provoke disaster when a simple act is interpreted as a miracle and an avid, unwanted adoration follows. Wherever he goes, people flock to the swami psychiatrist with the saintly face. Joseph seems either destined or doomed to attract followers. When he fails to find peace or enlightenment in India, he continues his quest in New York City at the invitation of an American Dean of Holistic Medicine who sees the Indian doctor as a guru for unhappy Westerners looking to the east for spiritual wisdom. Before long Joseph finds himself caring for a set of psychotic patients at M’Naghten Psychiatric Hospital: a deranged Senator in permanent campaign mode; a homicidal federal judge; a furious Rabbi who sometime believes he is God; a gypsy woman with a Jesus fixation; a senile old storyteller and Zamba, a hip schizophrenic with a bizarre world view. The lively bunch is quickly drawn to Joseph, basking in the peace of his presence. Into this circus of madmen comes Hastiin Nayachai, a Native American professor of astronomy who suffers psychotic breakdowns and predicts an apocalypse of stars in a galactic cluster. Touched by insanity, haunted by ancestral drums, and obsessed with the death of stars, he hears the voice of the Great Spirit calling him home to regain the balance and peace of mind that eludes him. In Nayachai, Joseph sees a disturbing reflection of his own quest and finds himself drawn ever deeper into his patient's enthralling delusions. It is this eccentric scientist Nayachai who by drawing Joseph along his own path of delusion and soul seeking, ultimately brings our protagonist to the place and the godly answers he seeks reside. The powerful relationship that grips the two goes beyond the boundaries of sanity and leaves the crusading psychiatrist wondering whether he’s achieved spiritual enlightenment or himself succumbed to madness.