Review of Indira Parthasarathy’s ‘The Middlemen of Vedapura’, translated by M.Okay. Sudarshan-OxBig News Network

The novel centres round a younger lady who returns from overseas to rediscover her roots, and turns into a political participant within the course of.
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In his lengthy literary profession spanning over 60 years, veteran Tamil littérateur Indira Parthasarathy, generally often called Ee. Paa, has produced many works that replicate social and political occasions in Tamil Nadu. His novel Kurithi Punal, written within the backdrop of the 1968 Keezhvenmani bloodbath of 44 individuals belonging to Scheduled Castes, fetched him the Sahitya Akademi award in 1977.

A novelist-cum- playwright, Prof. Parthasarathy, who turns 95 on July 10, gained the Saraswathi Samman within the late Nineties for his play Ramanujar, based mostly on the lifetime of the founding father of the Vishishtadvaita philosophy, which propagated the idea of social concord in South India within the eleventh century. Another essential play of his was Aurangazeb, written within the mid-70s, capturing one of the vital eventful intervals in Indian historical past.

His 90s novel Vedhapuratthu Vyaabaarigal, written at a time when Tamil Nadu skilled the eccentricities of these in political energy, has now been translated by M.Okay. Sudarshan into English as The Middlemen of Vedapura.

Essentially a political satire, The Middlemen of Vedapura centres round a younger lady, Apurva [the name of the granddaughters of Prof. Parthasarathy and his friend-littérateur Ashokamitran], who returns to Vedapura from overseas to rediscover her roots, and turns into a political participant within the course of, studying the tips of the commerce, and finally mastering the artwork of survival in a area the place deception and betrayal are the norms.

The plot wouldn’t be of curiosity to those that usually are not enamoured with politics however the narrative fashion and portrayal are engrossing. Notwithstanding sure hanging similarities to political personalities that the nation has seen, The Middlemen of Vedapura shouldn’t be considered as a piece that fictionalises real-life incidents. It goes past, and the translator has captured the spirit of the work very properly.

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The Middlemen of Vedapura

Indira Parthasarathy, trs M.Okay. Sudarshan

BlueRose Publishers

₹499