The Bay Area chapter of Vishnupuram Literary Circle met for our 16th monthly meeting today at Fremont Public Library. Considering the upcoming Tamil Literary Festival in NYC in April, we’ve decided to pick a short story from many of the authors who’ll be visiting the event.
Padmanabha kicked off with Suneel Krishnan’s Ambu Padukkai. This story is about how Anaaroona Chettiar’s adventures and cheating death around many corners made him who he is, and how Sudarshan, the grandson of the village doctor, feels about carrying on the tradition. Padmanabha talked about death as the only constant in life and how Suneel’s background as an Ayurvedic doctor puts him in an exquisite spot to write such a layered story. The group discussion drew parallels between these characters and Mahabharata and how Sudarshan’s grandfather, the village doctor, had such a pragmatic view of healthcare, and how eastern and western medicine look at their patients differently.
I spoke about M.Navin’s Vairam. The story is about the power dynamics between two men, who’re now in their old age, and how the seeds of this dynamic were sown 50 years ago. I started with a personal anecdote, why it still sticks in my memory and then led into the story about psychological prisons we create for ourselves and the only way to escape them is by becoming so big that these wounds become so small. The group discussion focused on the dynamics of class, capitalism, memory and letting go.
RV spoke about Chandra Thangaraj’s Araiyil Puguntha Thanimai. This story is about an intellectually strong young woman in an urban setting, fighting and at the same time embracing loneliness. RV saw this as a series of escalations where the protagonist tries to destabilize and then regain her power equilibrium. This story sparked wide-ranging takes from the group, with some expressions about siding with the woman’s actions, whether this was real or imaginary, and if the ‘punishment’ to the man was proportional to his ‘crimes’.
Bansi spoke about Su.Venugopal’s Solla Mudindhadhu. This story is about a middle-aged man who looks back on an incident 35 years ago that changed his relationship with his mother. Bansi broke down his speech into archetypes (what do we expect from a mother? how should a nun behave?) and filling in the gaps (what was said, and what was unsaid?). Like the previous story, the group was quite animated in discussing this story. One member was particularly strong in decrying the Indian elitism in expecting women, especially mothers, to behave in a certain way and how that harms our culture.
For our next meeting on March 14, we’ll discuss a short story from each of these authors: Thiruchendazhai, Samraj, Senthil Jegannathan & Senthil Kumar.
Transverse 