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Wow. I Didn't know that tamil literature had writers like P.singaram , till i read this novel.Another awesome novel that completely floored me.

The novel is about the events that happen in the life of pandian,a tamilian living abroad in south east asia.The novel is set in the world war 2 era.After reading so many stories set in the world war 2 era in english.I used to think that there was no good tamil novel(from my limited knowledge) set in that background.Iam correcting that opinion now.This is an awesome novel set in that period with so much information about that time period and about the non resident tamilians who were doing so well in south east asia during that time.

The novel is a cornucopia of information, P.singaram talks about various things in the book.Like world war 2, what was happening in south east asia and how are the characters affected by it.He also puts the war in south asia in context with what was happening world over.World war 2, south asia, off course he talks about INA(Indian National Army),Which had a major contribution from the tamilians living in south east asia.He describes in detail the lifestyles of tamilians from different communities who lived in south asia and how they adapted themselves to the places where they lived.Also there are numerous references to various tamil literatures and some discussions based on them.

Above all the novel is very unsentimental,it is not the usual type which has a few characters and spins a story around them, on there relations ,differences, love etc.This is different, Events happen fast and things keep changing and moving forward.Importance is given to the incidents and environment rather than the characters and feelings.It just takes us on a journey with pandian the main character, who is struggling in this big ocean of life.And yes he faces a lot of storms, what happens to this boat in the storm is the story.

Labels: book, novel, tamil