An ode to normalcy
As I dedicated the whole of last year for movies and binged on it. I thought I’d do the same for books this year and started with ‘The Painter of Signs’, one of the novels of my ever-favorite R K Narayan, which was just fine like any of Narayan’s novels. Jumped on to ‘Aadhiyil Yanaikkal Irunthana’ only because it was lying in my house and re read ‘Something Fresh’ again, which, like the title suggests, was fresh even while re reading. I thought I’d read and write simultaneously, finish up on my book and read on remaining times, like I finished my first book. But the equation now is different. If it was office, I’d have a dedicated time to read in the form of bus travel, write during office hours and do my other activities during weekend. Or maybe even finish off remaining part of writing during the weekend.
That was the best part with respect to the first book, I strictly wrote in timings when I didn’t do anything else but I couldn’t bring that sort of disciplined multitasking for the second book so I dropped the idea of one book per week and focused strictly on book from February. It took me a month to come to that conclusion. Even though the next three months was hell, when I think back, it doesn’t look like it’s that much of a time. It’s good that I finished it, I don’t have to continue thinking about it. It’s been in the dumps for close to six years, ever since I finished my first book. So now, more than anything, it’s quite a relief.
My first serious writing after the book is this. I wonder how so much in my life has changed in a span of six months. Generally, when I analyze my life at the end of the year, I can see progress or failure but not this much of a change. I finished ‘Oru Manithan Oru Veedu Oru Ulagam’ in my hometown at around midnight, the night before coming back to my home and the experience was surreal.
The novel started off at a leisurely pace. I wasn’t so invested in the Preface or the Author’s Note. I remember my dad telling how he liked it because he had read his other works. I understood, yeah, that could be the thing. If I had read a preface about R K Narayan or a Sujatha, I’d be even more intrigued. Or maybe even Woody Allen. Oh, how lovely it’d be to see Allen write about himself, as if his movies are not self-righteous enough. Ha ha.
Even before reading the book, I knew that there’s an idealistic character called Henry and another character called Devaraj who even though is in village, dreams of city life. Reading this description, I thought Henry would be like Kamal from ‘Varumayin Niram Sigappu’ but he turned out to be other way and I thought the character of Devaraj would be written like that of a pseudo intellect but that was wrong too. Nowadays I’m finding it tough to restrict myself from reading the introduction before the novel but here it wasn’t much a spoiler, in fact it gave a different dimension and I ended up liking the novel even more.
When the book starts and three main characters in it, Henry, Devaraj and Thoraikannu meet, I expected their life’s journey to go a long way but the time period of the entire novel is like a span of summer vacation but there is a lot Jayakanthan brings to it. For Henry everything is crystal clear, obviously no one can hate him. Maybe it’s a novel where there is no hatred at all. The Panchayat was the only place where I was afraid that it’d take a darker turn but Thoraikannu showed what a nice person he is in that phase. I loved it when they named Henry as Henry Pillai. Not only did he have a caste identify but also Pillai means kid in Tamil, which suited him well. It was like a form of affection. It was cute. Like how Arjun Reddy wouldn’t have worked as Arjun. This name too added to the charm.
But more than Henry I was intrigued with Devaraj’s character. I loved his realization whenever he hears stuff from Henry. Isn’t it a mark of a learned man? There was also a sweeping sadness in his life, like how the scientist Kamal feels in ‘Dasavatharam’, which made me empathize with him more.
It’s not Henry who’s idealistic but his dad, Pappa. Every time he says Pappa or when the author writes Pappa, my heart couldn’t stop melting. Just like Henry’s Pappa, his dad’s Maganae… too was strong enough to melt any heart. May be because of ‘Maganae vaa…’ stanza from ‘Mazhaithuli Mazhaithuli mannil Sangamam’, my image of his dad was a mix of MSV and Manivannan. Whenever I got a break while reading about his dad’s character, I hummed that stanza. But that’s not the only reason I hummed that…
All the novels which had been written in weekly magazines seemed to have been written with no idea of how it’ll proceed but don’t know how the novels once complete are so coherent. I wrote my first story online like that without knowing what will be the next chapter. I’ll write the next chapter in bus during evening journey and publish it the next day. It was so much fun. After that I got an advice from my friend asking me to finish the entire product and release it in parts. I am doing that ever since then. But this novel made me think like why can’t I write one chapter randomly every weekend without knowing what’s going to be next and do so for every week in a year. It’d come to good fifty chapters by year end and I can publish it in a book. I’m giving a serious thought to do this next year. Thanks to Jayakanthan for inspiring me to do this because after ‘Summer Camp’ I didn’t have any idea what to write next.
When the three people travel in the lorry, Thoraikannu asks Henry to not see a naked woman like that. I thought it’d just be a one-off incident to establish Henry’s character but the way her character was built towards the end was just phenomenal. Especially the climax got me heavy. I generally don’t like these characters and I thought Jeyakanthan here was trying to show his genius-ness through this character but I understood what a genius he is by the way her character was handled. Not sure whether he got the idea of re including her in the story or he had that idea from the first. Whatever it may be, again, the point to note here is how coherent it was.
This is claimed to be Jayakanthan’s best work. I haven’t read any of his other work. Generally, I’d feel bad if I consume an author’s best book first but I’d keep him as an author whom I won’t dig deep but read whenever I stumble upon. That’s the highest form of respect that I give for an artist. Because some things must just happen… And thanks to Jayakanthan for this book which is a great catalyst for any further reads because it’s kind of novel which sets the tone.
constantscribbles 