Kiragoorina gayyaaLigaLu - K PoorNachandra Tejaswi

"Kiragoorina gayyaaLigalu", a collection of 4 short stories in Kannada by K.P. PoorNachandra Tejaswi, is a mixed bag. Of the 4 stories, 2 are good ( krishNegowDana aane, maayamruga), 1 is average ( kiragoorina gayyaaaLigaLu) and i dont know why he wrote the 4th story(vishwana prapancha)!!

A commonly observed point in Tejaswi's writings is that the back drop of a story is just a premise which he uses to reflect upon the various faces of our society, in his signature humorous style. KrishNegowDana aane is one such story which is based on the troubles faced by the residents of small town due to the elephant owned by krishNegowDa. With this back drop Tejaswi takes a dig at the the functioning of various government bodies ( electricity, telephone, corporation, hospital) and the rivalry between them,As always, Tejaswi boosts the story with loads of dialogues which are not only humorous , but also takes a sarcastic look at the deficiencies in the system that is around us in our every day life. This one surely is worth a read.

"Maayaamruga" is a very smart story of 2 people who decide to spend a night in a graveyard to prove that there is nothing called the GHOST. The story moves as a conversation between 2 friends and as a part of conversation, Tejaswi makes his wild statements which are not only funny , but will also make you think. He questions our preset notion about the existence and appearance of ghosts and gives a tacky reply to those questions as well. Though short in length, this one is interesting enough to have been selected as "one of the ten best short stories in India " at the time of its publication.

"Kiragoorina gayyaaLigalu" is a case of mismatch between the story and its title. Its like a much publicized Rajnikanth movie where Rajni comes only in beginning and the end, while the rest of the movie is about some other guy. This story is not about the nasty women in kiragooru, but is about the misadventures of the men in that village.The story is interesting whenever the women are in the scene. This is on story where i felt that Tejaswi could not bring in his magic touch to the writing. The story goes everywhere, but ends up nowhere. This one is sure to disappoint hard-core fans of Tejaswi. The non-fans won't be happy either :)

"vishwana prapancha" is a very short story which has nothing to take away from it. Once you read the story, you are clueless as to what the author is trying to say in this story and will be happy that the story was the shortest in the book.

Overall, this one has a couple of good stories, but it doesn't fit into the list of great books that we expect from Tejaswi. I feel that every good writes ends up writing some stories which are not upto his own standards. Its upto the writer to decide whether he keeps it to himself or publish it as well. Tejaswi seems to have done the latter!!