Oru puliya marathin kathai (Tale of a Tamarind Tree)
Author – Sundara Ramaswamy
Publisher – kalachuvadu 20th Edition.
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All of us are playing our characters in our life. Life is mixure of ups and downs, sweet and sour. Such a short life, but the emotions, fluctuations, vengeance we have is endless. We have our own mouna-sakshi, silent spectator. A tamarind tree located in a junction of a town is such a mouna-sakshi. This story is soft spoken societal criticism .
Damodara aasan is a older man who portrays the story of the village in the pre-independence and independence period. His story portrays a peaceful, backward village of India. Later, the younger generation takes lead and run the political and commercial entities of the same town.
Such a peaceful village, how is it changed after independence – is the story background. What do we loose because of development? How the political, commercial, selfish thoughts influence the society.
Tamarind tree is a symbol of what we loose, because of development, as Writer Jeyamohan says.
They cut down all the trees, to develop a park. Children of economically backward classes, had full freedom in the trees. They used to jump and play after leaving their cattles in the empty fields. But the same children lost all their freedom, after the park is created. They are in queue to play in the children’s play area of that park. We could see the intolerance due to class diversity.
The story also shows how someone’s political wish was transformed as a communal issue. How media persons are accompanying such nasty thoughts. They story was written long back. Still it is applicable for 2017!
Damodara aasan, Abdul Khadar, Accountant of Khadar, Dhamu, Isakki, Joseph, Kadalai thatha are some of the beautiful characters, portrayed in this story. How many characters we could see!
This is a litmus test for our society.
dwaraka 