in his path-breaking fiction, The acclaimed Tamil writer I may am has written about the brutal complexities of the caste system and patriarchy in unadorned, powerful prose. Video mariamman is a collection of fourteen of his finest stories
poonkothai goes looking for her daughter who has eloped with a ‘low-caste’ man, hoping to give the daughter her Certificates and some money so that she can lead a decent life. The ‘stolen girl’, born into a family of black magicians and abducted when she had barely reached puberty, grows up to be a tough survivor who lives life entirely on her own terms. Srinivasan, a police Constable, tormented after being a pallbearer for a Dalit corpse and horrified by its implications for his social status, decides to quit his job. Chandravadanam, a music prodigy, dies, and kalaiammal, who brought her up without ever entering her house, mourns her death and curses the man for whom she gave up her youth and music. .
In these and ten other stories—translated by Padma Narayanan with great skill and sensitivity proves why he has been hailed as a writer with few equals anywhere, for his deep humanism and fierce sense of justice