What do you think a bunch of women, avg age - 35-40, travelling together would discuss during their journey? vera enna.... "yen soga kadhaiya kezhu thaaikulame !!" dhaan. Yes, this novel is about 5 such women, who share the Oh's and Woes of their life.
Starting with the main protagonist Akhila, if you have seen the Sujatha starrer KB movie 'Aval oru thodarkadhai' then you can place Akhila's character in Sujatha's place much sooner in the story. She does bring you nostalgic memories of the typical middle class brahmin household [read: the smell of kaapi, sunday special meals, sunday afternoon naps, the evening snacks, moms insisting on near-to-perfect or perfect kolams from their girls etc etc...]. Her confusions in life, the clarity she wants to seek..... they werent new to me.. thanks to KB sir.. :D
Janaki : is a very very common character that you can come across in your everyday life, if you just look around for a few mins. (You have the time ? )
Most of our mothers (read non-working mothers) or our grandmothers belong to this category.
Margaret Shanthi was a stunner for me. Man, she's got guts. Well these kind of women were exceptions in our or earlier generation (I am not sure if they have increased in number...but women of today knows exactly what she wants and exactly how she wants it and well, exactly how to get it done!!!! ...... Trust me, I have seen enough women of all ages for around 10 years in hostels and work places. They have become better than what we were).
Prabha Devi.. hmm .. the confused soul... but yes, when you have left your wishes unfulfilled and you are caught inbetween the old and new ways of the world ....you do get confused.. what other options do you have isnt ? [If you are confused seek answers fast....dont wait until things get messy..]
Sheela.. the kutty.... sometimes the younger lot are more mature in lot of ways than the older ones. They can even teach the old ones a thing or two. Marikozhundhu: Her life is a very common one if you have known people in and near the villages. They are taken for granted so much in so many ways. Generally, the village girls are said to be smarter than the city bred ones, because they would have tread the rough path in life and would have known how to save themselves daily and eventually become smart enough to get through life in their own way. Not their fault.
Well as far as the stories go, if you have seen enough of KB's movies, read enough of Jayakandhan or Lakshmi's tamizh novels, well these dont surprise you a lot. But with respect to writing, the flow was nice and smooth. Even though there were 6 stories altogether, you wouldnt be confused. You exactly know who is saying what and every thing had a perfect start and a perfect end. If you are woman, you can identify with each character, because you might have known them as yourself or as your sister, or your relative or your friend or your mom etc etc.. any woman you would know in your life. That is where she scores. The vocabulary isnt too hard either. You can see a perfect control over the words and the phrases in some places.
Would say: Read it once atleast, if you are woman.
[Side note: You would be surprised how a single word 'coffee' can be pronounced differently in different parts of India. On this recently I heard a theory, am not sure of its validity but, I thought it to be fair enough explanation so here it is. In Kerala, they pronounce it as kofi (make a big O while saying it;) ) and in TamilNadu it is pronouced as Caafi or Kaafi. Seems like Kerala was ruled by people who were mainly from Ireland and TN was ruled by Scottish people. Now hear how these two people pronounce Coffee.... well you can Google for it.. And you will see that they match the way the people in Kerala and TN say it resp. hmmm... interesting ain't ?]
