Father Alphonse, a minor magician, chose not to go with the French when they quit Mayyazhi, in North Kerala. He stayed back to smoke hash and convert, to schoolchildren바카라™s delight, stones to colourful candies. His daughter, Elsie, goes astray as only women can, through sex바카라”the awful daring of a moment바카라™s surrender. Later, Alphonse바카라™s wife too would be unfaithful, in a carnal alchemy of betrayal.
A widower, Vaidyar바카라™s compassion, like Alphonse바카라™s, is not based on reason. It flows inexorably, like blood from a wound that won바카라™t heal. His children grow up to become, one, a drunk, the other, a Naxalite on the run. Vaidyar suffers his grief sans hope or resentment, his spirit바카라™s generosity inviolate.
What disturbs you about the two characters is their unconscious but acute distancing from politics and power in a town in transition. Fate works its puzzles, but Alphonse and Vaidyar stay helplessly themselves.
Mukundan바카라™s craft is tantalising in its understatement. But the sadness of his vision wells up through the words, despite an unambitious translation, its spring secreted in history itself.
