Through the eyes of a child

The world has changed beyond recognition in the last 60 years or a little more. The Malabar coast of today is vastly different from what it was in Raja Rao's Kanthapura in the 1930s. It could not have been a perfect world then, but one cannot but feel that in many ways, it was indeed better and more humane than the world today in which a relentless pursuit of creature comforts outweighs everything else. It was a time when a trader would rather give away a truckload of oranges for free rather than sell them at a distress price and get cheated in the process. It was also a time when when an elderly chess player would allow himself to be cheated so that the "game could go on".

Malabar Musings are stories of the eternal childhood as seen through the eyes of a child. A world in which children in a village uninitiated to factory-made toys would turn dappled sunlight seeping in through gaps in the thatched roof of the classroom into eggs and have a competition in catching them, leading, sometimes, to strange consequences. These are simple, beautiful stories narrated in exquisite English.

I was fortunate because the author, my friend Ktr KT Rajagopalan​ shared the manuscript with me. Loved reading every page of the book, and as I read, I couldn't but reflect on how the world has changed in our lifetime.

I also bought the Kindle edition of the book just now. If you have a smartphone, I would strongly recommend that you buy it too from Amazon.in. My only regret is that a hard copy of the book is not yet available and therefore, I am denied of the pleasure of holding this wonderful book in my hands.

22 December 2019