Book Review: The Kite Flyers By Sharad P Paul

In today’s times, reading an Indian Author usually translates into “North Indian boy meets South Indian girl” stories or “IIT/IIM boy makes it big in the big bad world” tales. So when you come across a plot of three friends from a remote village in Tamil Nadu who separate and reunite against a political backdrop you pick it up just for the refreshing change the book brings from the pink and rosy world of MBA and romance.

Kumar, Raman and Lakshmi are three friends from the village of KKP in Tamil Nadu. Flying Kites is a passion both Kumar and Raman share and one which they teach Lakshmi to enjoy. Learning practical life lessons from Kadallikaran, the groundnut vendor from their village, they look forward to an exciting childhood together but it all comes to a stand still when Kumar and Raman’s schooling comes to an abrupt end. Raman picks his life from there and decides to move to Madras to earn his living as a tailor while Lakshmi plunges into the Kaveri when her parents decide to marry her off to her Uncle. The three friends drift apart. But the tragedy of their lives doesn't end there. Against the political backdrop of MGR’s growing influence in Tamil Nadu and the general unrest of the Tamilians against Hindi as the national language, the three friends undergo changes that change the course of the lives forever. How they break apart and eventually get together is what The Kite Flyers is all about.

Sharad Paul begins this book with the narrator who wonders about the Kite framed on the wall of Cool Cuts, the salon where he goes for his haircut. He wants to question Kumar, his barber but does not get an opportunity. From there on begins the flashback of the lives of three friends and the circumstances that bring them back to the present. While he does not get into the details of their childhood and solely focuses on a few moments of their friendship and kite flying, he depicts the lives of Eunuchs when they get intertwined with those of the protagonists extremely well. What also stands out for me is the knowledge he brings out about the political situation in Tamil Nadu during the 1970’s along with the intense hatred for Hindi as the national language. The possessiveness for Tamil and everything that is Tamil is evident even today but the intensity from those times is cleverly represented by Paul.

The fine job done in setting up the political backdrop however does not seem to extend to the narrative as much. The transition from present to the past seems abrupt with no premise being set for the change. The absence of the narrator through the story and the sudden appearance towards the end also makes you question the necessity of the character. While the story concludes well, the focus on Gowrie the village school teacher in the Epilogue seems forced esp. since the character was not really introduced in the main story.  an editing standpoint is the usage of abusive words in English which take away the authenticity from the dialogue of a village boy.

Despite a few loose ends here and there, The Kite Flyers makes a fine read esp. because it is a story of what the southern parts of India truly were like in those times. Not too many Indian Fiction Authors venture into the realist world of Indian culture and history, Sharad Paul is an exception whose efforts must be appreciated.