Chidambara Rahasya - K P PoorNachandra Tejaswi

When an author narrates a good story in an interesting way , using characters which you can relate to in your daily life and in your own day-today slang language --- there is nothing that can stop you from liking the book. One such kannada book is "Chidambara Rahasya " by K P PoorNachandra Tejaswi.

This book deals with murder investigation, caste system, communal riots, blind beliefs, love story, elaichi plants, friendship, youth rebels, land lords, untouchables, politics-- all mixed together so harmoniously that you can't separate out one from another, but read them together as one complete story.  This curious-till-end story is laced with lot of humour and the author has taken care to showcase various issues in a lighter vein so that people get the message, but don’t get offended.

Tejaswi takes enough liberty to make serious comments on brahmins, gowdas, hindus and muslims all through the book. One needs to have an open mind in reading this book to actually enjoy its content. If you feel you can’t take any sort of comment on your caste or religion, then this book is not for you. Though the book mainly deals about the problems leading to the decline of elaichi business and its relation to the death of a senior scientist, the book unfolds a lot turbulent truths that exist in our society. Be it the caste system or inter-religious marriages or the communal riots or the negligence of government in research activities, the author nails down the point right on its head. But, what doesn’t make it boring is the humorous way in which he talks about these points. He also makes sure that he only points out the existing problems through it’s characters and doesn’t preach any solution to them. If the reader really feels that Tejaswi has said it right, then he will even realize what the solution is J

One of the various plus points about this book is the language used. It is same as the one used in the puTTaNNa kaNagaL classic naagarahaavu. The language comes out so naturally that over a period of time, you get carried away into the fictional world of this novel and be a spectator to all it’s proceedings. Though obsecene in certain places, it is not something that you wouldn’t have heard so far J

One more rare but interesting observation in this book is that it is not narrated from a protagonist’s perspective. It means that the author is not the character in this book. Hence, the author is able to capture different scenarios happening in parallel at different places at the same time. ( in other books, the narrator needs to be present in all the scenes of the book). This also gives the author a kind of poetic liberty to not restrict himself in creating situations to make sure that the protagonist is there in every frame. It is also see the author converges the parallel frames at one point to make it all meaningful individually as well as collectively.

Read it without fail.