Oru Deshathinte Katha

I have finished reading SK Pottekkatt's 'Oru deshathinte katha'(Story of a Village). Jotting down some words about it. To summarize, this is a simple story of a village called Athiranipaadam spanning about 50years narrated mostly from the point of eye of the protagonist of the story Sreedharan. Just like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One hundred years of solitude’, SK Pottekkat has created a world out of thin air through this novel consisting of innumerous characters entering and leaving its frame. Story starts with Sreedharan returning to the village he left 30 years ago, from there on as a flash back the story follows the birth of the village Athiranipadam and ends with its death (and a re-birth).

The book could be classified as a autobiographical, dramatic, humorous, tragic, adventurous, romantic, poetic piece of fiction. It is filled with short stories in the form of fables, real incidents, memoirs, history, flash-backs and rumors about all the colorful characters of that village, everyone well connected to the flow of the novel. The characters are very real and there would be someone whom you could always relate to . Their little adventures, romance, fights and grief is what this novel is all about. These stories would ultimately they leave some marks in our hearts, good or bad.

It is a period novel set in pre-independence Kerala and hence the story touches through the Feudalistic culture, incidents like Moplah rebellion, revolutions like gandhian independence struggle, world wars etc. As mentioned above major part of the novel is around the life of Sreedharan, the style of narration matures as he move from his childhood to Adulthood, from his schoolboy mind to a more matured adult. His dislike of mathematics and inclination towards the literatures and poetry later flowers into some fine poems through the novel.

Memories are tastier than imagination. This novel has that taste of memories. Like MT says in Kaadhikante Panippura ‘Stories are the unspeakable pain of writer’s heart’, as SK lets the memories flow out of him through his pen he lets those suppressed emotions also fill into the words. The episodes of Sreedharan’s childhood adventures, ‘Supper Sarkeet’ gang, Krishnanmaster, the Railway signal control room, Kunjappoo’s life, the Kunjikelu Melan’s contemptuous life, Kuloose Parangodan, Ammukutty etc vividly creates an Athiranipadam of imagination in the mind and at the end you will feel that so long you have been living in that village along with all these people.

Written in a very simple and colloquial language, it is a must read!