Kalki and Cosmopolitanism: Chronicling the Life and Times of a Lesser-Known Vishnu Avatāra in Kevin Missal’s Kalki Series

The last decade has seen an explosion of Hindu mythic fantasy literature. This paper examines one such example, Kevin Missal’s trilogy Kalki: Avatar of Vishnu. Kalki is most well-known as the tenth, future avatāra of Viṣṇu. The Kalki Purāṇa, a secondary or upa-purāṇa, narrates the future life of Kalki. Missal’s series reimagines this story, combining elements of the Kalki Purāṇa with story elements from American and British movies and television like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, The Dark Knight, and Terminator 2. This kind of narrative mixing reflects the cosmopolitanism of twenty-first Hindu elites who are fully at home with English language media and are reimagining Hindu narrative, incorporating story elements from outside of Hinduism that have shaped their worlds and have become part of their religious lexicon. Missal’s books also reflect the “telling/selling” symbiosis of global markets and an ambivalent relationship to Hindu nationalist discourse.