no, this is not the evangelical variety.
this anand mahadevan has been living in canada for a few years now. had it not been for the notoriety created by the evangelist, i would not have heard of this guy.
found canuck anand through google search for the evangelist. sure enough, this canuck get boquets and brickbats over the evangelist's actions. he has disclaimer.
i picked up his the strike, more out of curiosity. i wish i had not.
early enough in the novel, we know that this is a coming of age book about a 12 year old tamil brahmin boy, who is named, hari!
coming of age is a genre, which is can be bittersweet or uplifting. it needs a level of honesty to examine and pen the feelings of a pre teen.
the earliest memory i have, of a tamil brahmin boy based story was vaadhiyaar vedapuri, which was serialized in ananda vikatan in 1958. week after week, i used wait eagerly to read about this kudumi kid vedam, growing up in an orthodox household.
what was heart warming was the presence of girls of his age, interaction to them and also the behaviour of the elders. they were human and together, the author, whose name i forget, wrote a plausible story. after 50 years, it still tops my list of story of a youngster - in any language or culture.
vedam carried his brahminism, with somewhat as a burden. i could relate to several of his angsts and worries. it could have been me.
r.k. narayan dealt with another brahmin boy - swami. all in short stories. they were superb - especially swami's brief interludes with his father. the brahminism was implied, as by reading the swami stories, one could never doubt that this was a brahmin household.
i think there are broadly three types of authors - the superb ones, the good ones and the ones that have potential.
anand belong to the last category. definitely he is a 'work in progress' at its initial stage of development.
the book could have been presented as a group of short stories. instead it is one long disjointed book. the vignettes appear to be standalone pieces, without much connectivity. i felt so bored with the book, that inspite of my natural born sympathy for the author, i had to stop 2/3 of the way
here let me also take opportunity to mention another canadian writer with tamil brahmin background - padma viswanathan. her book 'toss of lemon' received is a long 'hanuman vaal' 640 page narration about a turn of the 20th century tamil brahmin family.
the writing was pedantic and after the first 25 pages i took a pass.
this anand mahadevan has been living in canada for a few years now. had it not been for the notoriety created by the evangelist, i would not have heard of this guy.
found canuck anand through google search for the evangelist. sure enough, this canuck get boquets and brickbats over the evangelist's actions. he has disclaimer.
i picked up his the strike, more out of curiosity. i wish i had not.
early enough in the novel, we know that this is a coming of age book about a 12 year old tamil brahmin boy, who is named, hari!
coming of age is a genre, which is can be bittersweet or uplifting. it needs a level of honesty to examine and pen the feelings of a pre teen.
the earliest memory i have, of a tamil brahmin boy based story was vaadhiyaar vedapuri, which was serialized in ananda vikatan in 1958. week after week, i used wait eagerly to read about this kudumi kid vedam, growing up in an orthodox household.
what was heart warming was the presence of girls of his age, interaction to them and also the behaviour of the elders. they were human and together, the author, whose name i forget, wrote a plausible story. after 50 years, it still tops my list of story of a youngster - in any language or culture.
vedam carried his brahminism, with somewhat as a burden. i could relate to several of his angsts and worries. it could have been me.
r.k. narayan dealt with another brahmin boy - swami. all in short stories. they were superb - especially swami's brief interludes with his father. the brahminism was implied, as by reading the swami stories, one could never doubt that this was a brahmin household.
i think there are broadly three types of authors - the superb ones, the good ones and the ones that have potential.
anand belong to the last category. definitely he is a 'work in progress' at its initial stage of development.
the book could have been presented as a group of short stories. instead it is one long disjointed book. the vignettes appear to be standalone pieces, without much connectivity. i felt so bored with the book, that inspite of my natural born sympathy for the author, i had to stop 2/3 of the way
here let me also take opportunity to mention another canadian writer with tamil brahmin background - padma viswanathan. her book 'toss of lemon' received is a long 'hanuman vaal' 640 page narration about a turn of the 20th century tamil brahmin family.
the writing was pedantic and after the first 25 pages i took a pass.
