What drove G Nagarajan – a handsome, cultured and talented Brahmin, a passionate Communist and teacher – to abandon his job, party and family for a life cut short by poverty and addiction on the fringes of Madurai? We find not the answer but the enigma in his slim oeuvre – among the most original and disquieting in modern Tamil literature.
Nagarajan was influenced by Hemingway, and Camus’ The Stranger was reportedly one of his favourite books. This may explain his style – of a rare precision and minimalism. In his work, a new world enters Tamil literature: not only the lives of sex workers, strongmen, pimps et al., but also the dim, and at times glaring, light they cast on the familiar.
At a glance, Appaṭi oru kālam! Appaṭi oru piṟavi! could be the story of countless village deities: a sinner or victim gone before their time, a vengeful but useful spirit to be appeased and worshipped as a minor god. But in stripping this topos of its considerable cultural and metaphysical freight, Nagarajan makes something new: a distinctly Tamil existentialism.
– Ashik Kahina
What a Time! What a Creature!
They ask me why they killed Mallan. I could dodge and say it’s a matter for the courts. But I won’t. Out of courts come half-truths, sometimes three-quarters. Never the whole truth. The courts know it. The police know it too. Truth is, the two have a close, enduring relationship. To take the suspects to the station and beat them senseless whenever there’s a murder in a village – that’s all the police know. And the lawyers make a killing. Neither the villagers nor the police know a thing about law. Lawyers know a thing or two and, like astrologers, they know a little practical psychology. As for Mallan, he didn’t believe in laws, courts or psychology. He didn’t say so. But that’s how he acted.