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Book Review
TAMIL
Nomadic life
SE. GANESALINGAN
KUTRAPPARAMBARAI: Vela Ramamoorthi; Kaavya, 16, II Cross Street, Trustpuram, Kodambakkam, Chennai-600024. Rs. 200.
THIS NOVEL serialised in the Tamil weekly Junior Vikatan narrates events that happened for a period of four to five decades under British rule somewhere in southern Tamil Nadu, around Ramanathapuram district.
It involves tribal people living as nomads, moving in search of security, food, water and a place to rest at night. Besides such a hard life, there were caste clashes and also violence under the purview of white police rule.
The ignorance of the people, their superstitious beliefs and hard life are well narrated naturally and in a fast-paced style. Many of the characters in the novel are from two leading communities.
Primitive weapons, hunting for food, forest life, theft, plunder, killing, death and rituals are described in detail in the story, besides temples and festivals.
White police officers also feature in the story. They are shown as overlooking everyday crime and more concerned with organisations involved in the freedom struggle.
The three leading characters in the novel are the aged Coolan Kilavi, her son Veyanna and his son Sethu, who joins the police force and is an honest policeman, much like the hero in Tamil films. Sethu is ordered by the police chief to place a red-hot iron on his father as punishment for committing a crime, and the son obeys. Such melodramatic events are brought in at the tail end of the story. Veyanna dies on the lap of his mother amidst bodies of the dead after a caste clash in the village.
The novel may be useful for a sociological study of village life before Independence.
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