A credible tale of children growing up into adults voyaging through adolescence, G B Prabhat's Early Indications has placed before us five instances to show how this is an unpredictable world.
Each baby is unique unlike the babies one sees in George Orwell's 1984. Indeed, Shiva would rather avoid being reminded of those years, "a part of my life I had managed to carefully sever connections with." But he is unable to forget though he sounds as if he were ashamed of the other boys in his group. The promising girl, of course, has become his wife.
There is no hero in Early Indications. It is a hotchpotch of tailored memories and adolescent titillations presented with a canny sense of the theatrical. For, of the five children who studied together for several years, the narrator alone has managed a sea-green success story.
Though set in Peelamedu-Coimbatore, the opening is Chennai, where Shiva and his family survive the tsunami lash. The early indication for the novel's content comes with a simile that could describe the novel itself. The sea-bed relieved of a tsunami wave reminds Shiva-Prabhat of "a vamp's thighs in old Tamil movies, when she flirtatiously swings her skirt above her knees."
The skirt swings quite often when the boys manage to reach the Pearly Gates of CF College.
Taking his cue from Enid Blyton, Prabhat uses the magic number five (not too few, not too many) and we get to have doses of everyday life in contemporary India.
The Iyer boy on his own steam enters the engineering college, the others by other means. For them, just a pass is enough at the plus-two level. "I'll manage the rest with my caste certificate." Yet they had been described as geniuses by the kindly kezhavi (old woman) nursery teacher.
The Enid Blyton-drenched Shiva would become a writer; the sprinter Rohit a sportsman, Vellikani a poet because of his fixation with rhymes, Dorai would invent a new type of car and Sarita would of course become a great singer.
However, engineering is the universal parental dream. As far as the boys are concerned, the college days are important for toughening up, and that includes a predictable fight between Rohit and Shiva over Sarita.
There is a heaviness about the recordation whether it is ranting by Rohit or child abuse by Hercules or girl-chasing by Dorai.
Tiruvalluvar, The Invisible Man and Lolita apart, phrases like "gestalt behaviour" and "that was a hickey" pepper the novel with a bit of paedophilia thrown in. Shiva's is the success story of the IT revolution and he marries Sarita who manages to keep alive her music even after domesticity.
Early Indications is a flaccid novel, but not without its merits, I guess. As when the all-knowing boy Dorai shares his knowledge of the ghost atop the tamarind tree: "Mohini, the bewitching beauty, who would lure you in the huskiest of voices, and cajole you to follow her. You would fall for it, only to be led up the tree and ripped apart."
The clash and clippage of Tamil and English and the attempt to create a
loyalty club of Tamil swear words will certainly raise a laugh or two: che, tiffin, lollu. Also, a loud cheer for the picture perfect translation, shop-in-the-box. Ah, the owner of the ubiquitous potti kadai!
Each baby is unique unlike the babies one sees in George Orwell's 1984. Indeed, Shiva would rather avoid being reminded of those years, "a part of my life I had managed to carefully sever connections with." But he is unable to forget though he sounds as if he were ashamed of the other boys in his group. The promising girl, of course, has become his wife.
There is no hero in Early Indications. It is a hotchpotch of tailored memories and adolescent titillations presented with a canny sense of the theatrical. For, of the five children who studied together for several years, the narrator alone has managed a sea-green success story.
Though set in Peelamedu-Coimbatore, the opening is Chennai, where Shiva and his family survive the tsunami lash. The early indication for the novel's content comes with a simile that could describe the novel itself. The sea-bed relieved of a tsunami wave reminds Shiva-Prabhat of "a vamp's thighs in old Tamil movies, when she flirtatiously swings her skirt above her knees."
The skirt swings quite often when the boys manage to reach the Pearly Gates of CF College.
Taking his cue from Enid Blyton, Prabhat uses the magic number five (not too few, not too many) and we get to have doses of everyday life in contemporary India.
The Iyer boy on his own steam enters the engineering college, the others by other means. For them, just a pass is enough at the plus-two level. "I'll manage the rest with my caste certificate." Yet they had been described as geniuses by the kindly kezhavi (old woman) nursery teacher.
The Enid Blyton-drenched Shiva would become a writer; the sprinter Rohit a sportsman, Vellikani a poet because of his fixation with rhymes, Dorai would invent a new type of car and Sarita would of course become a great singer.
However, engineering is the universal parental dream. As far as the boys are concerned, the college days are important for toughening up, and that includes a predictable fight between Rohit and Shiva over Sarita.
There is a heaviness about the recordation whether it is ranting by Rohit or child abuse by Hercules or girl-chasing by Dorai.
Tiruvalluvar, The Invisible Man and Lolita apart, phrases like "gestalt behaviour" and "that was a hickey" pepper the novel with a bit of paedophilia thrown in. Shiva's is the success story of the IT revolution and he marries Sarita who manages to keep alive her music even after domesticity.
Early Indications is a flaccid novel, but not without its merits, I guess. As when the all-knowing boy Dorai shares his knowledge of the ghost atop the tamarind tree: "Mohini, the bewitching beauty, who would lure you in the huskiest of voices, and cajole you to follow her. You would fall for it, only to be led up the tree and ripped apart."
The clash and clippage of Tamil and English and the attempt to create a
loyalty club of Tamil swear words will certainly raise a laugh or two: che, tiffin, lollu. Also, a loud cheer for the picture perfect translation, shop-in-the-box. Ah, the owner of the ubiquitous potti kadai!