The Hindu
H. Ramakrishnan
ANDAL PRIYADARSHINI SIRUKATHAIGAL: Andal Priyadarshini; Yegam Pathippagam, 3, Pillaiyar Koil Street, 2nd Lane, Triplicane, Chennai-600005. Rs. 550.
THIS RATHER bulky volume packs as many as 87short stories that present a colourful mosaic of multiple themes. Underlying almost all of the stories is the feminist perspective.
A poet, TV producer, film lyricist and essayist, Priyadarshini is a powerful writer, who does not mince words. If her storylines are diverse and imaginative, yet realistic, her style is down to earth.
A distinctive feature of her stories which have women's liberation as the central message is that, in most cases, Goddess Saraswathi figures as the key character. ‘Pariharam' revolves round a politician who is bent upon marrying a young girl, with her mother frantically appealing to all right-thinking people to save her. The author goes to the extent of justifying even murder in situations where humanism comes under serious threat and needs to be upheld. In ‘Thee,' the poet in the author comes to the fore where she speaks of a mother feeding her child for the last time. In ‘Perumoochin Neelam', she exposes the true face of a politician out of power.
Almost invariably, the characters in Priyadarshini's stories are very real, presumably because they are based on people she had met in her day-to-day life. This lends a touch of authenticity to her narrative, and the readers naturally get hooked on to her writings.
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