Anybody who’s even slightly interested in the political landscape of Tamil Nadu would have heard of the first Chief Minister of the southern state, CN Annadurai (fondly called Anna). As a Dravidian politician and a champion of social justice, he ushered in several changes. His oratorical skills do not need an introduction, but his bibliography certainly needs some pointers. Ramakrishnan V, in the translator’s note of Help Me with This Tricky Case, says, “One of the main reasons for the literary world’s sidelining of Anna’s fiction is the largely propagandistic nature of his writing.”
Anna’s stories, then, should be mainly viewed in that context. Help Me with This Tricky Case, which comprises 22 short stories, offers a glimpse into his creative mind. His protagonists were mostly people from the lower castes. He treated rationalists with kid gloves and pointed accusatory fingers at the rich and the powerful. As an atheist himself, he probably wanted to show that no amount of devotion could alleviate poverty and tip the scales in favor of the downtrodden. Apart from these important comments, I must also add that he stayed away from spreading the flames of religious supremacy.
In the opening story Cock-a-doodle-doo, the narrator is dragged into a chummy conversation by an old friend, who immediately starts boasting about his job (he’s the editor of a magazine), on the beach one day. Although his duties sound exciting at first, it won’t take the reader too much time to discover the air of implausibility surrounding his tall tales. However, since the story itself lasts just a few pages, there isn’t enough material to build a castle of mystery.
Finally, the climactic revelation arrives as a painful reminder of shattered dreams rather than as a punch in the gut. After the editor incurs “heavy losses on the two bi-weekly journals and the fortnightly magazine he had been the proprietor of,” he loses his mental faculties. In that case, can the editor’s web of lies be seen as a coping mechanism? Who knows? Anna doesn’t go there at all because he doesn’t let his characters behave freely; he comes across as a writer who guides everybody through the darkness by giving them a list of dos and don’ts.
When authors turn into observers, they’ll be able to let their stories flow in all directions and come up with uncommon — or even risky — endings. But when the stories are churned in a pot of binaries (for example, good versus evil), the end results will be predictable. The silver lining in the collection, however, is the comedy. Anna’s strength lies in extracting humour from the helplessness of his characters without lowering the bar by punching down.
In Approximate Arumugam, the eponymous protagonist always uses the word “approximate” to answer the questions that are directed at him. Whether it’s about the time he’s asked, or the distance between one place and another, he leans on the crutch of approximation as it provides him with a veil of vagueness. Pitch-perfect clarity is his biggest enemy. And, oftentimes, this bad habit of his puts him in misery. Why would any employer trust such a guy?
And, in some stories, the gods are left baffled and angry by the selfishness of their devotees. Anna was, perhaps, trying to speak to the readers directly through his stories. His prose is free of philosophical riddles. Ramakrishnan goes on to state, “Subtlety was a luxury Anna could not afford while writing for the masses. Even the subtlest of his stories close with at least a sentence or two clarifying the ‘moral’ of the narrative. In most cases, Anna spends a whole paragraph at the end to spell out the point of the story.” This is indeed true.
I wouldn’t recommend Help Me with This Tricky Case to all and sundry because Anna is by no means O Henry. Would I have picked up his collection if I wasn’t aware of his achievements? Nope. If your only motive is to understand the celebrated politician through his words, then you won’t have any complaints. On the other hand, if you value the transformative power of literature above all else, this book may not work for you. And, for that, I have a suggestion: Tove Ditlevsen’s The Trouble with Happiness and Other Stories (translated by Michael Favala Goldman).
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