https://azhiyasudargal.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post_08.html
வெளியே போக்கிரிகள் உலகைச் சின்னபின்னமாக்கிக் கொண்டிருக்கிறாரகள்.
In ஒரு பழைய கிழவரும், ஒரு புதிய உலகமும், Aadhavan offers us a protagonist who appears familiar: Nagarajan, a retired, upper-middle-class man nearing sixty, deeply convinced that the world around him is slipping into vulgarity and moral decay. Young people are irresponsible, public behavior has worsened, taste has eroded, and sincerity is no longer valued. On the surface, Nagarajan’s complaints do not seem entirely baseless. The world has changed; it is louder, brasher, less deferential. But this story is not about whether Nagarajan is right or wrong in his diagnosis. The title roughly translates to “An Old Man and a New World”, not “An Old Man in a New World”, which implies incompatibility and progress (or lack thereof) in different directions.
Nagarajan is a man whose moral vocabulary is sharp, whose judgment is relentless, and whose moral courage is entirely absent. Nagarajan condemns everyone. A young man rides past him on a motorcycle, and Nagarajan immediately assumes malicious intent. In the barber shop, he surveys the waiting youths – one reading Filmfare, another chewing radish – and pronounces them useless, tasteless and intellectually bankrupt. His contempt extends inward too: his son and daughter-in-law, both college lecturers, are dismissed as intellectual lightweights who merely parrot opinions from cheap newspapers. Even professional success irritates him – the man who replaced him at work, poorly trained in Nagarajan’s eyes, has been promoted. The world, clearly, no longer rewards sincerity or skill.
Yet this gushing of judgment masks a striking pattern: Nagarajan speaks boldly only where there is no risk. When young men harass his barber – someone Nagarajan genuinely likes – he considers intervening. For a brief moment, he senses that silence would be wrong. But the cost of speaking up is real: confrontation, possible humiliation, maybe violence. Nagarajan realizes this, and is able to expertly come up with reasons to avoid action:
நாகராஜனுக்குப் பொறுக்கவில்லை. அந்த நாவிதனுக்கு ஆதரவாக ஏதாவது சொல்ல வேண்டும்போல இருந்தது. ஆனால் அவருடைய உதவி உண்மையிலேயே அவனுக்குச் சாதகமானதாக இருக்குமாவென்றும் அவருக்குச் சந்தேக மாயிருந்தது. என்ன இருந்தாலும் அவர் இந்த ஊர்க்கார ரில்லை. அவருடைய இந்தி உச்சரிப்பு அந்தப் பையன்களுடைய கொண்டாட்டத்தை அதிகப்படுத்தி, அவரை அவர்களுடைய கிண்டலிலிருந்து காப்பாற்றும் அதிகப் படியான பொறுப்பை வேறு அந்த நாவிதன் மேல் சுமத்தக்கூடும். அவருக்கு புஜபலமில்லை; வேறு பலங்களுமில்லை. அவர் அங்கிருந்து நடக்கத் தொடங்கினார். இதற்காகத் தன்னையே வெறுத்துக் கொண்டார். தான் செய்யத் தவறியவற்றுக்குச் சுலபமாகச் சமாதானங்கள் கற்பித்துக் கொள்ள அவரால் முடிகிறது.
This attitude converts Nagarajan’s personal responsibility into cosmic inevitability. Moral cowardice cloaked as pragmatism. This pattern is not new. Nagarajan remembers his deceased wife with reverence – her patience, her cooking, her quiet endurance. But he also remembers, with uneasy clarity, how he failed her. When his sister humiliated and vilified his wife, Nagarajan stood aside. He did not defend her then, just as he does not defend the barber now. His regret is genuine, but it does not alter his present conduct. So, what’s the point of regretting?
The story’s revealing turn comes in an episode at a cinema coffee stall. Displeased with the movie and enraged by the taste of the coffee, Nagarajan launches a vicious, public attack on the young man serving it – calling him shameless, accusing him of cheating customers, insulting him loudly and personally: “உனக்கு வெட்கமில்லை. எதையே ஒன்றைக் காப்பியென்று ஏமாற்றி இவ்வளவு பணம் வேறு பறிக்கிறாயே அயோக்கிய ராஸ்கல்!” This time, Nagarajan has no hesitation. There is no abstraction, no resignation. His anger pours out freely. Why? Because here the risk is minimal. Is it because the target is a young man who’s economically weaker? That in the theater setting he feels emboldened by others?
Nagarajan congratulates himself afterward: “அந்த வெளிப்பாடு தூய்மையானது.” He decides that his only flaw is one of communication style – he must refine his speech, purify his delivery (அவர் தன்னை இன்னமும் பக்குவப்படுத்திக் கொள்ள வேண்டும் தன் வெளிப்பாடுகளைச் சுத்தமாக்கிக் கொள்ள வேண்டும்). This is the story’s most damning moment of self-deception. Nagarajan mistakes cruelty for honesty and aggression for moral clarity. He does not ask whether he should have spoken at all, only whether he could have spoken with more polish.
Aadhavan pushes the knife deeper when Nagarajan briefly wonders whether he resembles his sister – the same sister who made his wife’s life unbearable merely to assert her presence (அவருக்கும், இள வயதில் விதவையாக்கப்பட்டு அவருடனேயே தங்கி அவருடைய தாம்பத்திய வாழ்க்கையின் ஆரம்ப நாட்களை நரகமாக்கிய அவருடைய தமக்கைக்கும் என்ன வித்தியாசம்?). The comparison is accurate, and for a fleeting second, insight dawns. But Nagarajan immediately retreats from it. If he were truly like her, he reassures himself, his daughter-in-law would not tolerate him.
Here, tolerance is mistaken for approval. In reality, the daughter-in-law’s patience is a form of emotional maturity, not moral endorsement. She tolerates Nagarajan despite his grating ingratitude, despite his habit of inserting himself into social situations only to sabotage them. She absorbs his backwardness so that the household can function, like how his wife swallowed pride and took at the vitriol directed at her without any intervention from her husband. Nagarajan, who prides himself on seriousness and intellect, never recognizes this. He is blind to the grace extended to him daily.
The story’s devastating final note – the barber’s murder by one of the very youths Nagarajan silently judged – lands not as melodrama, but as moral consequence. Nagarajan is shocked, but not transformed. There is no redemptive awakening, because the story has already shown us that he knows how to speak. He simply chooses the wrong moments and the wrong targets. Aadhavan suggests, with a ruthlessness I might add, that social decay is enabled not only by loud, reckless youth, but by silent, judgmental elders who refuse to risk themselves for the values they claim to cherish.
Nagarajan, in his righteous outburst at the theater, says of his fellow coffee-drinkers “அவர்களுக்குச் சுரணையில்லை” for consuming that abominable drink. Aadhavan asks a harder question: Nagarajan, who has a sharp சுரணை when drinking coffee and eating upma, if he ever had any சுரணை in his life when it mattered?
Transverse 