INDIAN NATIONALS form the biggest of chunk of foreign technologists working in the United States. It is understandable therefore that novelists and story writers should be increasingly looking for themes such as cultural conflicts and nostalgia of the Indian diaspora. This commendable novel speaks about the discords in value system created by geographical separation and the emotional trauma that haunts even people of distinction and worldly wisdom.
Driven by the longing for the native village and all it stands for, the couple drawn from dissimilar backgrounds realise their mutual craving and abandon the trappings of an elite society, overcoming the pulls and pressures it exerts.
Devanarayanan Namboothiri, a brilliant technologist, rises to an exalted position in a reputed computer laboratory in the U.S. He falls in love with a colleague, Janey, and marries her. They have two children, a son and a daughter. The son is of independent disposition, while the girl is attached to her father. The couple secretly but separately report to CIA. Because of misapprehension and ego clashes arising out of their divergent backgrounds, they live separately. Namboothiri decides to return to India with his daughter but in a dramatic turn, his wife joins him.
The story is absorbing and the characters are indelibly etched, with each one falling in place. The situation prevailing in families where the income-earning son is abroad is portrayed realistically and with poignancy, particularly while narrating the pangs of separation and agony the aged and loving parents suffer back home.
SAMAVÂKYANGAL:K.S. Kumar; DC Bookos, DC Kizhakemuri Edam, Good Shepherd Street, Kottayam-686001. Rs. 80.
