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P.a.krishnan

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kunjuppu

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Every once in a while, one comes across an author who immediately ‘clicks’ on all fronts. This happened a few months back.
I was introduced to P.A.Krishnan (PAK) through Jeyamohan’s blog. This particular article was a reference to his latest novel ‘The Muddy River’. Granted that Jeyamohan writes superbly, and whose views I have great respect. So when J put in a word, that the River should be a must read, I could not wait to get a copy of my own.

The story surrounds the joys and travails of a Tamilian Central Government Employee Chandran, who at this moment is deputed to work for what we can call the Power Corporation of India (PCI). For those of us uninitiated, the PCI is one of those gigantic world size power generating units, of which we hear nothing or close to nothing.

Their operations are far north east or remote, and power generated distributed to the hungry states. The story begins when Ghosh, their engineer in remote Assam is kidnapped by the Separatists, and Chandran is appointed by PCI top brass, in conjunction with the Central Minister, to negotiate with the terrorists.

This assignment is a punishment for Chandran – for his honesty, for his ‘arrogance’, for his refusal to ‘play’ the corruption game.

Add to the complexity is his own private tragedy – the loss of his one and only pre teen daughter – and the tensions generated because of it with his wife.

To say more, would be to give away too much of the book – though if you surf the net, you can find several reviews, which sort of provide a non detailed description of the plot.

I am yet to come across a review which is not in praise of this novel. And I would recommend this to anyone who reads English and (yes) Tamil.

Krishnan, initially wrote the novel in English, and then did his own translation. I bought the English version through U.S. Amazon for a incredibly cheap price of $6 (+$2.50 shipping) which is almost akin to stealing a baby.
The tamil novel is கலங்கிய நதி. Whichever you read, you will be amazed at the current political shenanigans that happens in New Delhi at the Central sources of power and how much it is abused and corrupted. It is disheartening to an extent, that one feels that the country has no hope.

Those of us, who despair Tamil Nadu politics, would tend to despair further, at the scale and spread of what is happening in Delhi.

Krishnan writes like an insider. Which is true. He is a south Tamil Nadu born and brought up Tenkalai Iyengar, who through his passage of 65 years, lost his faith long ago. But not his intimate knowledge of Sri Vaishnavaite chants and philosophy, which he dishes out at appropriate intervals in his novel (more so in his debut The Tiger Claw Tree. In Tamil புலி நகர் கொன்றை, about which I will write about in another posting.

Here is a couple of url that is of interest…
பி.à®￾. கிரà¯￾à®·à¯￾ணனினà¯￾ “கலஙà¯￾கிய நதி” « சிலிகானà¯￾ ஷெலà¯￾ஃபà¯￾

சிலிகà¯￾கனà¯￾ ஷெலà¯￾ஃபà¯￾ மே கூடà¯￾டமà¯￾ – பாகமà¯￾ 2 (பி.à®￾.கே.யà¯￾டனà¯￾ à®’à®°à¯￾ சநà¯￾திபà¯￾பà¯￾) « சிலிகானà¯￾ ஷெலà¯￾ஃபà¯￾
 
Kunjuppu,

Thank you for the refreshing thread and the links. I will come back here after I read PAK.
 
Looking forward to the read. Thanks for the suggestion!
 
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