The Sea Elephants

The Sea Elephants (publication date July 11, 2023) by Shastri Akella is the book about grief, queerness, Hindu mythology, and street theatre that I had no idea that I needed. It’s beautifully written, and though it’s not a short book, I wished that I could stay immersed in Shagun world longer.

As the book opens in the late 1980s, teenager Shagun is meeting his father for the first time that he remembers, six months after his twin younger sisters died in the ocean and he believes he is to blame for their death. He is angry with his father for leaving, and for coming home, and just for being. Plus, his father has figured out something about Shagun that never seemed to be a problem when it was just his mother, sisters, and him. Shagun is aware of his feelings for other boys, but his father is determined to make Shagun into a man. So Shagun decides to apply for a scholarship for a boarding school to get away.

But boarding school isn’t that great, either, as all of the boys can see who he is despite his attempts to fit in, and he is the victim of assault. He is an excellent student, though, and a teacher suggests that he go to see a performance of Hindu myths by a street troupe. Shagun falls in love with the idea of acting, as he and his sisters had performed the myths their mother read for them in the treehouse that was theirs alone. It’s a way he can be closer to them since they’re gone. He loves the idea of becoming the gods and goddesses and telling the myths in the present tense.

When a man in charge of a “male fixing center” comes to see him at school at his father’s request, and Shagun is to report there at the end of the term, Shagun knows that he has to join the street performing troupe so they will never find him. And so Shagun travels India performing in a different place every few days, until they stop years later to teach the performing arts at a school. There he meets the love of his life, Marc, an American Jewish man who emigrated to southern India as a child to live near a centuries-old Jewish settlement.

Even though years have passed since Shagun was a teenager, and it is the 1990s, it is still difficult to be gay in India, with police harassment, the male fixing centers still seeking men to convert, and parents arranging marriages. After his father dies in a construction accident in England, and his mother goes to live in a widow’s convent, Shagun finds family in those around him. He finally finds the courage to be himself with the man that he loves, and to forgive himself for whatever role he may have played in the accidental deaths of his sisters.

It’s a beautiful book, and now I want to visit India to see street theatre and smell strings of jasmine flowers.

The Sea Elephants is weight-neutral, as there were no descriptions of fatness or fat people that I recall. However, part of the early storyline involved Shagun’s somewhat enlarged chest compared to many boys or men, but I didn’t see that as a description of him being fat. But I could see these descriptions as being difficult for some, so fair warning.