The Sambar146;s A Little Thin

Sometimes, quite inadvertently, while reviewing a book, one visualises the author, without ever having met the long-suffering soul. After al...

Sometimes, quite inadvertently, while reviewing a book, one visualises the author, without ever having met the long-suffering soul. After all, each book has been toiled over, and it is ever so easy to dismiss the writing as 8220;average8221; or representing 8220;the book that should have never been written8221;. While reading T.S. Tirumurti8217;s Clive Avenue I kept conjuring up this image of a well-meaning, gentle, conservative purveyor of words, who, quite nostalgically, while sitting in his post as Counsellor at the US Embassy in Washington, DC, recreates a street and its inhabitants in Chennai.

Clive Avenue is certainly no Peyton Place. In these placid environs, the main excitement the agitation level of which can be compared to steam rising from freshly made idlis is the return of the prodigal: 25-year-old IT whiz Rajan returns home to the loving arms of his parents and grandmother, and a bevy of neighbours and interested parents of brides-to-be. This Tamil version of A Suitable Boy is romantic could this also be the Chennai based Mills 038; Boon? and somewhat alarming in its traditional, conventional approach to relationships.

Clive Avenue
By T.S. Tirumurti
Penguin India
Price: Rs 275

Obviously, in Tirumurti8217;s world the young South Indian after having loved and lost a Mexican rose in America cannot but swim with the tide 8212; in this case the routine girl-showing ceremonies. The family astrologer plays a starring role 8212; but alas, his prophecy of a dosham in the horoscope of the chosen girl is not taken seriously enough. The net result: the angry constellation is not appeased, and some 8220;rowdies8221; stab Rajan.

No doubt 8220;rowdies8221; is a term used to describe 8220;noisy, turbulent persons8221; according to the Chambers dictionary, but it also creates a linguistic jump in Tirumurti8217;s book, which is written, sadly enough, without much colloquial flavour. Had he created a plot of some tension, and worked into it the local vocabulary not just that occasional dosham and 8220;rowdies8221; Clive Avenue could have become a taut slice-of-life narrative.

But as the inhabitants of Sabarmati Rajan8217;s home go through their painfully described getting-out-of-bed, and brushing-their-teeth routine, we are beset by the mundane woes of water shortages, and descriptions of how the doodhwala adulterates the milk.

Somewhere, the author8217;s own unease with sexual relations becomes quite apparent, as when Rajan finally meets a suitable girl, Gayathri. She hell and damnation! smokes and drinks and even kisses her male friends. Worse, she inhabits discotheques. Rajan, the sweet young thing who never knew that girls from good families could be so decadent, decides not to marry her. However, since this is a tale of the triumph of virtuosity over depravity, who will Rajan marry now? Clive Avenue8217;s good-hearted inhabitants deserve a happy ending. Interestingly enough, it is the beautiful French girl down the street who has been brought up in the true Chennai mould, whom Rajan is gently nudged towards.

To be fair, perhaps this is the true picture of the 8220;Tam Bram8221; world 8212; but had it been presented with a little less antiseptic, and a little more flesh and blood and not so much like a mannequin having a bad hair day Tirumurti8217;s Clive Avenue need not have led to a cul de sac. But, fortunately, there are enough indicators that his next book may be soaked in the masala of real life.