Soman Gouda

Spoor of an Indian Horse Soman Gouda

Spoor of an Indian Horse is the unforgettable story of Laxman, a lonely corporate professional, at a crucial juncture in his life, seeks to refuge in writing about his fairytale-like childhood full of serendipitous encounters, in the hope of finding the purpose of his existence. A boy in a southern Indian village with a buffalo to be taken care along with his school, leaves home at a dawn, after a series of debacles and dejections that come his way. Then follows his stint at the summit of a hill nearby the village, at White Horse Dargah - with a dying Sufi saint and an enchanting stallion. He remains obscured, behind the curtains in sanctum and helps the needy pilgrims with his prodigious talent in number patterns. After few days, eyes of a gang of gamblers fall on the wonder boy. What happens after that? Laxman in his present life struggles - to cope up with his alienated life, and to escape the strained liaison with his neighbour woman. The process of tracing his own footprints I.e self-reflection ignites his soul to transform his present life as well. He finds the lost thread of the purpose of his life and evolves into a complete man, by churning through his memories. The story that begins as an individual's ends as that of a satisfying Indian narrative. It is a skilfully interwoven tale with the multifarious themes such as repercussions of globalization both at individual and societal levels, economic imbalance, cultural conflicts, illiteracy, migratory chaos, communal amalgamation, corporate alienation and so on. Spoor... is also an awe-inspiring story of success and idealism of an unlikely boy from a remote village of southern India.