Thalaikeezh Vigithangal’s protagonist Sivadhanu is a poor but educated villager on the lookout for a suitable job. An affluent man from a nearby town Chokkalingam is impressed with the young man and plans to groom him into becoming a businessman. He arranges for a wedding, makes him his son-in-law but Sivadhanu’s self-respect does not permit him to take the slights at his father in law’s place, lying down. He finds a job for himself and at this point, things turn awry. A story left with an open, interpretative ending, it is left to the readers to concur with the consequences of Sivadhanu’s separation from his wife and an ideal life.

About the Author
Nanjil Nadan’s first short story in Tamil titled, Viradham was published in N. Parthasarathy’s Deepam in 1975. He has authored six novels, 112 short stories, two short story anthologies, five essay collections, and two poetry collections. Published in 1977, his first Tamil novel Thalaikeezh Vigithangal was an instant bestseller. In 2002, it was adapted into a movie Solla Marantha Kathai by Thangar Bachan. Later came novels such as Embiladanai Veyilkayum, Mamisapadaippu, Midhavai, Sadhuranga Kuthirai (1993) and Ettuthikkum Madhayaanai – this novel has been made into a Tamil movie called Padithurai. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his short story collection, Soodiya Poo Soodarka, in 2010.

Also read
Ettuthikkum Madhayaanai 
Translated to Against All Odds by Gita Subramanian
Falsely accused and hounded by the cruelty of the caste-ridden mores of a small village in the Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu, twenty-year-old Poolingam, a lowly potter by caste, runs away with no idea of where to go and what to do with his life. Ultimately, Against All Odds is a story of hope. Though cruelly torn away from the cocoon of his home and village and plunged into the searing realities of the even harsher world outside, Poolingam emerges not as a cynic but as a compassionate human being who still has the courage to love and give selflessly.

Set in Madras spanning a period of twenty years between the 1950s and the 1970s, Chudamani explores the mystery of the human mind, and its essential solitariness with unobtrusive passion in this novel. It chronicles the story of Yamini, who loved nothing better than solitude and felt a deep oneness with nature till the brink of being labeled as a recluse. Despite the ban imposed on child marriage by the Sharada Act of the late 1920s, Yamini is married off against her wishes and feels violated. She soon gives birth to a child, but even a daughter doesn’t evoke a sense of tenderness into her being. With the fear of history repeating itself, Yamini’s mother is worried about Geetha who is completely unlike her mother but equally distraught. A story spanning three generations, it also traces how the conservative views on marriage changed overtime allowing Geetha to assert her wishes and be respected for them, breaking the vicious cycle that Yamini was a victim of.

This novel documents how every individual has a core, inner life and to violate this core of privacy is to set off a kind of cataclysm within the mind. Because of the nature of human relationships, that cataclysm will raise relentless echoes in the lives of others.

About the Author
Chudamani Raghavan (10 January 1931 – 13 September 2010) was a novelist, short-story writer, and translator who wrote both in English and Tamil. Born in Chennai, she was homeschooled due to a physical disability. She started her literary career in 1954 with the publication of Parisu Vimarsanam, a humourous skit that appeared in Dinamani Kadir, a Tamil weekly. The core concern of her stories remained until the very end, human life as it is lived in the present day. Women in her stories emerge as characters bracing the strong winds of life, fighting and resisting and sometimes succumbing, painted in a lyrical and poetic language that caught the subtlest of emotions with ease and dexterity.

Based on the Keezhavenmani massacre of 1967 in which 442 Harijans were burnt to death in a landlord- peasant clash, author Indira Parthasarathy’s genuine portrayal of characters and incidents are the ultimate highlights of this novel. A novel, that makes you question the importance of revolutions and their vis-à-vis struggles.

Parthasarathy’s bold narrative takes you back in time, as you jump through the pages to support the main protagonists, Gopal and Siva. It makes you ponder over the individuality associated with social movements, realizing that every revolution’s seed lies in the self-interest of its sufferers. Moving on to questioning if and whether revolutions and struggles can really even be inevitable?

The book revolves around the interaction of forces between the haves and have-nots of rural India and of the confrontation of values when products of urban prodigality return to become agents of village messiahism.

The author shows immense narrative talent throughout the book which reaches a crescendo in the last couple of pages. Take this, for instance, “Revolution shall never cease to be. If it ceases, it ceases to be a revolution.” An edge-of-the-seat thriller, carved in with a hard-hitting story is intelligently written and will instantly set you off to explore more.

About the Author
Indira Parthasarathy is the pen name of R. Parthasarathy, a noted Tamil writer and playwright. He is perhaps the only writer in Tamil to have won both Sahitya Akademi and Sangeet Natak Akademi awards. Born in 1930, Indira Parthasarathy is a scholar, creative writer, literary critic, cultural historian and thinker. During his long and distinguished career as an academician in Delhi University, is when he came under the influence of western literature. He has published 16 novels, 10 plays, anthologies of short stories and essays. Some of his stories have gone beyond the shores of India to Spain, France, Russia and the Middle East.