Subramania Bharati's fantastical tale underscores a common man's toils, travails and preoccupations in modern society. A chariot takes off into the sky from Veeraraghava Mudali Street, Chennai. A journalist plagued by material worries and daily vexations in British-occupied, twentieth-century India has set sail to realms strange and unexplored. As he navigates The World of Tranquillity, The World of Happiness, The World of Truth, and The World of Dharma, his values and ideals inform, compete and often contradict one another, deepening his self-doubts and limitations as an ordinary, everyday man. A critical examination of an afflicted, stratified civilization in the throes of corruption and greed, Subramania Bharati's only novel speaks to a morally wounded country through cutting observations and lively humour. The Chariot of Wisdom – a modern classic just as topical today as it was last century – is a cleverly masked plea to a distracted nation to rally together in pursuit of an even and just society.
