Though I was a Tamil fanatic during my school days, I lost touch with writing in Tamil for nearly 60 years as I became extremely busy with my profession and other extracurricular activities. However, I continued to be in touch with the language by regularly reading popular Tamil magazines. But my active involvement with Tamizh Puthaga Nanbargal (Tamil Readers Forum) and my friendship with writer (Late) Charukesi reintroduced me to the world of Tamil literature ten years ago. I started reading Tamil books again. I got to know several popular writers/editors of Tamil magazines at a personal level. One of them is the `one woman army` Girija Raghavan, editor of the 25-year-old Ladies Special magazine. A woman I admire a lot for her indomitable spirit, multitasking abilities, and commitment to women's empowerment
I
bought a copy of her book titled `Rowthiram Pazhagu`( Winning against anger)
–a collection of her short stories in Tamil, at the
celebrations to mark the 25th Anniversary of the magazine
recently. Here is my first attempt at reviewing a Tamil book in
English.
Out
of the 18 stories in the book 16 are women-centric and only two deal with male
subjects. Most of the stories are based on the lives of people the author met or worked with over the years- many of them true stories with some
creative inputs by the author.
Most
of the stories feature women as modern in their outlook who want to break the
barriers imposed on them by a conservative society. While I liked all the
stories a couple of them impressed me more than the others.
The
title story `Rowthiram Pazhagu` deals with Kavitha -a divorcee with two
children who works as a maidservant in an office trying to give a good
education to her children. Her penchant for dressing up impeccably while
going to her job leads to gossip among some neighbors; especially a
couple who stay in one of the tenements staying in the complex. Overhearing their conversation
suspecting her character after leaving her husband makes her angry and later
when she sees the neighbor in her office, secretly talking to
her boss trying to find out more details about her, she becomes
furious. On her way home that day she stops at the neighbor`s house
and gives a piece of her mind to them. She tells them, `If a woman wants to
take a wrong path nobody can stop her. Similarly, nobody can come near her if a woman decides to be firm on being morally upright. A hard-hitting message
indeed!
The
story titled `Oru Jeevan` deals with Ramanathan & Vasantha, parents of NRI
children settled in different parts of the world. A typical story of
such parents who find it difficult to adjust to life in foreign lands and their
hopes of getting their children permanently returned to
India never happen. The only time when all children come
to visit their parents together is when the father passes away.
After staying briefly to attend the rituals they all go back leaving
their old mother to stay alone, as she refuses to accompany any one of
them. What happens to the old lady when she gets tired of living
alone, is described by the author with an interesting twist at the
end of the story.
Even
the slightest event can provoke a creative writer to fictionalize it. The
shortest short story, someone said, talks of the meeting of two persons on a
train. One asked the other, “Do you believe in ghosts?” “Yes,” said the other,
and vanished!
Girija`s
stories are not that short. All the stories are well
structured following all the rules of short story writing. They make for
interesting reading
In
her preface to the book Girija says that this is the first collection of her
short stories and hopes that it will be a precursor to many more as she is
keen to establish her name as a creative writer. Judging by
the contents of the stories and their easy-to-read
style in `Rowthiram Pazhagu` I am sure she
will realize her dream soon. I wish her all the best!
( The
book, priced at Rs 170/-, is published by Gayathri Publications. The author
can be contacted on 9840816281 for your copy)
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