The novel starts with a breaking news of the dealth of Malayali writer J.J. The story is narrated by another writer Balu.
I wondered, whether to call it as a novel or a collection of memoirs of Writer J.J. from different personalities. I read Jeyamohan’s vishnupuram novel before I took this. I had feeling of empathy on myself, due to my inability of not getting into its Indian philosophical debate. At that state, I was expecting another typical novel, which gives the sequence of different events which moves towards an end. It was not structured like that.
It starts with a philosophical elaboration. After 30 or 40 pages, it absorbs us into it completely. Writer Balu wants to write about J.J. He make efforts to know about him before doing so. He meet different personalities, he get the opinions from them. JJ sounds like an idealistic, impactical, melancholic…. So, different knots formed in the first part of novelm, when different characters speak about him. they are cleared in the second part of the novel, as JJ himself starts speaking.
The entire novel is written in an circastic tone. Despite the plot is described as Malayalam literary world, Sundara Ramasamy hits the nail at the head of Tamil literary world and its hipocrisy.
JJ mocks hipocrasy at many places – Ottapalam Karunakaran’s surprise of a lady character in cross roads in a french novel; the bogus agony of chittukuruvi’s condolence speech – we can quote many of such incidences.
Our surrounding is hipocratic. We like to others swindling us all the time. We are in a stage where we consider that as the normal. I am from Tamilnadu, where defaming hinduism is disguised as aethism. Despite the political preaching, politicians used to file their nominations on ‘amrit kaal’. Kerala is where you can find Communists living inside Multi storey bungalows. We should not talk about Religion, at the same time, we can not give up my caste.. Wow.. No wonder, JJ grimaces at the glimmer of such shabby smugs.
Apart from the sarcasms, it pushes the reader to think and search for the real character of JJ. The novel ends at a place where the user is convinced that JJ was searching for truth among those these delusive literary whoops.
Reserve in NLB Jē. Jē. : cila kur̲ippukaḷ
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