August 28, 2008

Washington-il Thirumanam

For long, I kept this book by Savi pending..finally managed to finish it. Man..for the hype surrounding the book, I found it boring. Its a story abt a US lady wanting to conduct an Indian marriage in US - Kind of West meets East line. It failed miserably on its USP - Comedy. I have heard my grandpa saying that AnandaVikatan made roaring business while serializing this story...May be the humor worked in those times..Every single joke was stretched to the maximum. I found the cartoons by Gopulu interesting..thats it.

8 comments:

Abi said...

Saavi (and Manian, too) was one of the most worthless writers that got hyped up in the sixties and the seventies. If Saavi was the pre-eminent comedy writer of that era, Tamil Nadu must have been a sad place during those days ...

Krishnan said...

Yes you are right, Washington-il Thirumanam is a kind of book one cant enjoy nowadays. Those kind of books are frozen in their time and space, maybe if you can time travel to late 1960s and early 1970s you would have enjoyed it. That is where, timeless works like Kalki's epics score a point.

Krish said...

Reading Washington-il Thirumanam these days u feel like Saavi's immagination of the events is less that of a 5yr old kid now.
America in no more a dream location..Our kids know the American states and capitals that more than what they know abt India..

Anonymous said...

hi i m divya, when i was small this "washingtonil thrumanam" story comes in tv as serial... i love to watch it... so if possible upload the video format of that drama to m.divya25@ymail.com...

thanks in advance - divya m :-)

balu said...

The serial story "Washington-il Thirumanam" was published in Ananda Vikatan in the 60's & 70's. For people, America was not much known and the imagination of the writer must be appreciated in getting the wedding sequences right & add light heart-ed humour to it. Remember those were the days when life was more leisurely and people enjoyed stories like these in Tamil Magazines. Now, America has become the next door sort of thing and comments of the present generation about these excellent art works can do more harm than good. People have taken the trouble of taking the pages of the story from the magazine and got them bound and treasuring it even today. So, please don't belittle the art works of yester-years; they are your treasures.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Balu. The settings are based in the 6o's and 70's and we need to read it from that perspective. The other day the drama was played in Secunderabad Key's High School by Kovai Padu and his troop. It was great. The aspirations and imaginations it must have created in the minds of those days' readers must be phenomenal. With the decaying of our culture in India, I am sure that in another couple of decades, the traditional marriage as shown in the story/drama would be a ready reckoner in Tamil Nadu itself.


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Unknown said...

It was a wonderful serial.We used to eagerly wait for the next issue . Gopulu's cartoons were dipicting the various characters and instances beatifully.I am from Bangalore and studied in kannada. My neighbour a class Tamilians , who read the serial to me . On a readers demand the serial was published in a book format.
I learnt reading tamil to read it again and again . I was the first person to buy the from my vendor.

Unknown said...

It was a wonderful serial.We used to eagerly wait for the next issue . Gopulu's cartoons were dipicting the various characters and instances beatifully.I am from Bangalore and studied in kannada. My neighbour a class Tamilians , who read the serial to me . On a readers demand the serial was published in a book format.
I learnt reading tamil to read it again and again . I was the first person to buy the from my vendor.