Archive of An Unknown

A writer friend of mine recommended me this book when I approached him for something. I quickly read the reviews online and immediately ordered the book. I finished it in just few days burning the midnight oil couple of times. It’s written by a Mumbai-based journalist, P. Sainath. What is that ‘good’ drought? I have the same question too. Even before the book came, I was dumbstruck reading the reviews. This is the first time he has ever recommended me a book. How could he be so precise in judging what could be a good read for me! He could never have recommended me a better book. Why is it so special? The book is all about places that are close to my heart. He has identified the poorest eight districts in India and talked about the problems faced by them. Ramanathapuram (Ramnad) district in Tamil Nadu is one of them. My native place is in Thoothukudi district. Ramnad is our neighboring district. What is more interesting is that our forefathers are supposed to have migrated out of Ramn...

Once again it has been a long break... I don't think I would be able to do justice to this review in three posts but I am also worried if my review would become longer than the novel itself. So, let me try to condense my comments in this post and start with a fourth part if required later. A fiction cannot be a photocopy of reality. The author has realized it well and thus also deviated from reality in some cases. The real Durai from Tamil Nadu is not as educated as he is portrayed in the novel. We don't even know if he ever went to college. He never fell in love with any TV anchor from a 'national' channel though there were talks of some stuff with a local newsreader two decades back. On the other hand, this Durai's education and his affair with the TV anchor reminds me of Kashmir. Not sure how many more states' stories are going to come in the chapters in line. :) Knowing most of the parallels in reality, I couldn't resist comparing every paragrap...

Now that all autobiography is over, it's time to get started with the actual review of the novel... First, as the first thing in the new year, the author posted an introduction explaining why he was missing in action for sometime (I was one of them who was wondering what he was doing so silently after such a striking start!), and what he was planning to do in the next few months (his plan to write his first novel online) and the structure he had in his mind for that (how many words and how many chapters, etc.). He talked about what he was getting into as well. As he said, blog novel is indeed a not-so-tested idea in Indian context. Not many people have tried it in our part of the world though I am not sure about others. Like all other things, writing in India is way different from that in any other part of the world - including the English writing. Today, we have our own version of Indianized English. For that matter, we have Indianized almost everything western. Others c...

Politics has always been an interesting subject for me. It's a love-hate relationship that I have with politics. I almost hate all our politicians but I love reading and discussing anything on politics. I follow politics almost on daily basis. My grandfather was a freedom fighter and politician , who sacrificed a lot of things in life for his country and people. Today, I am little hesitant to even call him a politician because it has got a different meaning now. I just say he was a freedom fighter most times. He was in Congress party during the Indian freedom movement inspired by both Gandhi and Bose and then converted to Communism in prison by another inmate Mr. R Venkatraman, who ironically remained in Congress party till the end and became the president of this 'Mostly Congress' country. I grew up hearing stories about my grandfather, which were filled with only sacrifices. That background made me interested in politics. I remember an uncle of mine teaching me to ...