Pirivom Santhippom

After years of waiting, finally i managed to finish reading "Pirivom Santhippom". I so badly wanted to read this novel for so long, but was unable to get the full copy anywhere. Whenever i went to any book shop, i would either not get a copy or will forget to check, remembering it only later. Onlinela there will be only the second portion of the book available and never the complete set. There was a movie, Anantha Thandavam, based on this book and even that movie, i had never seen from start to finish. Always from halfway portion. I thought i was never destined to read this book. Then one fine day finally managed to get the ebook of the entire two parts and promptly forgot where i saved the file!! Few days back stumbled on the file and immediately started on it. Sujatha never disappoints and no wonder this book of his is such a huge hit among his fans.

Its a simple love story, but alas love stories can never be simple right? A story of an young man, full of confusions and doubts and impulsiveness that comes with his age, meets an young girl and falls head over heels in love. He gets the job the interview of which he did miserably. He feels like getting his confident back to face life and suddenly everything begins to look rosy. He feels lucky and strong and powerful enough to take over the world and with each passing instant his love for his girl grows manifold that he decides life without her is not worth living. Their love story goes so smooth and fast that it proceeds to their engagement without a hitch, that at one stage he think out aloud how come there is no villain in his love story. His wish gets granted and in comes a American maapillai. He sweeps the girls parents off their feet with his show of wealth and even sways the girl's mind into marrying him. The heartbroken hero tries to commit suicide in vain. Motivated by his dad, he takes up higher studies in US only to run into his lady love again. The story takes the usual twists and turns, with cheating husband, unsuspecting wife, ex-lover getting blamed etc. He meets another girl at a party and her parents too are immediately on to him and coerce him into getting married to their daughter. Meanwhile, the girl finds out the true colors about her husband and begs the hero on the day of his engagement to take her back to India. A tragic climax unfolds leaving everyone heartbroken.

It might be too simple a story to shrink it in so few a word. But the real magic lies in the details. The way Sujatha describes Pavanasam dam and its surroudings to the minutest of details that you could see the mist and fog and sound of water flowing nearby and he is equally at home in describing NYC. The characterisation of Raghu is top notch. He brings out the confusions of a teenager entering adult life very well. If there is one word to describe Madhu, its confused. Her character gets swayed by anyone and everyone and she is always on freefall mode right from scene one. Totally contradicting Ratna's, the other girl in Raghu's life, character, who is confident and independent but still gets dictated by her dad on her choice of husband. Both Madhu and Ratna's parents are shown as sly and cunning and both the families try to gobble up Raghu, taking advantage of his innoncence and forever confused state of mind. Both the families bypass Raghu's dad, who sounds to be the only sensible and sane person amidst all the characters. There is another wisehead in the form of his dad's friend who gives asylum to Raghu in NYC. A typical foriegn settled Indian, having seen the bright and dark side of life in US. Every single character in the book has shades of grey in them. They are confused and make hasty decisions only to repent later and their approach to life mimic real life people.

The movie is a literal adaptation of the book. For every single page of the book, i went back to the movie. Couldnt quite imagine anyone else for the role of Madhu other than Tamanna. She looks like a doll, as always and is so refreshingly good looking and innocent that she was the perfect fit for the role. Wish she had acted a bit too apart from looking like glam doll. But the story is from Raghu's perspective. Wonder if the director could've chosen a different hero. That guy looks irritated throughout the movie and never looks interested. Rukmini does a neat role as Ratna and looks sharp and intelligent with a  NRI air about her. There is a situation in the novel when Raghu takes Madhu for a trip to Disneyland upon insistance by Madhu's husband. He would still be madly deeply in love with her but would be restraining himself. In the movie, the situation is picturised as a song "Poovinai Thiranthu kondu", one of the best songs by GV Prakash with finest lyrics. You would appreciate the song more after reading the novel.

Love has always been the most complex yet most easiest of all human emotions. The very reason that we go all the way into loving someone, over and above oneself, makes us into believing that we get a say on their life. Which in a way negates the very meaning of love, which is supposed to be selfless. Not sure if such kind of love ever exists..but it would be the purest form of it all. Very happy to've finally read the book and this would be one book i would cherish for a long long time.