This is an extra ordinary tale of love set against the backdrop of Emergency and Naxal period in the state of Kerala. The protagonist Das, a survivor of the notorious Kakkayam camp during the Emergency, lives or rather exists with a remorse of being a traitor to his fellow comrades. The narrator Prema, daughter of one of the policemen at the same camp, owing to the atrocities of her father, develops an attraction towards Das and his Naxalite philosophy and sees him as a key to her own independence, happiness and life. Das, on the other hand, unable to overcome the guilt, takes up the job of dredging corpses from water bodies and finds solace in ganja and alcohol.
The author, though takes great effort in describing the horror and brutality faced by the Naxalites in detail, does not take sides as she, through the voice of Vasudevan, one of the police chiefs at the camp, justifies the policemen as just tools in the hands of those who held the power and if not them, someone else would have done the task for the state.
The brilliance of K R Meera, the author can be seen in naming the protagonist as J.U.Das which is later transformed to Judas, the Biblical character to which he assumes similarity, naming the narrator Prema who falls in love with Das and the intense description of the period of Emergency through characters like Vasudevan, Ittiachan and Sunanda.
"Power is a magician's hat. Humans who wear it inevitably transform"
Also, the cover design and illustrations are simply awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment