పండిత పరమేశ్వర శాస్త్రి వీలునామా [Pandita Parameswara Sastri Veelunaama]

by Tripuraneni Gopichand

"వివిధ పాత్రల మనోగతాల్ని ఆవిష్కరించే క్రమంలో వాటిని వారి వారి కథలుగా 'చెప్పించడం' ద్వారా నవల రాయడంలో ఒక నూతన మార్గాన్ని సూచించిన గోపీచంద్ సాహిత్య చరిత్రలో ఎప్పటికీ నిలిచిపోతారు."

"ఏ నాటికీ నిలిచే నవల. మనిషి ఎలా ఉంటే సంపూర్ణ జీవితం గడపగలడో వివరించిన విశిష్ట నవల. ఆనాటి ప్రథమ తెలుగు నవల గుణగణాల్ని గుర్తుంచుకునేలా ఈనాటి పాఠకులకు అందజేసిన ప్రచురణకర్తలు అభినందనీయులు."

"సాంఘిక జీవితం బ్రతుకుదెరువుకూ అనుభవాలకీ ఉపయోగపడుతుంది. ఒంటరితనం అనుభవాలను జీర్ణించుకోడానికి వ్యక్తిగతాభివృద్ధికీ ఉపయోగపడుతుంది అంటారు గోపీచంద్. కేంద్ర సాహిత్య అకాడెమీ బహుమతి పొందిన ఈ తొలి తెలుగు నవల (1963)ను పునర్ముద్రించి 'అలకనంద' మంచి పనే చేసింది."

"తెలుగుదేశంలో రచయితల చుట్టూ అల్లుకున్న రాజకీయాలను ప్రతిభావంతంగా చిత్రీకరించిన నవల 'గోపీచంద్' రాసిన 'పండిత పరమేశ్వర శాస్త్రి వీలునామా'. "

Genres: Fiction, India

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripuran...

Reviews

[Harish Challapalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very wonderful book.. everyone will be having a book/movie/incident/whatever that changes their basic thinking process.. this is one such book which makes you think about how you think..

The male lead was too idealistic character but can change at his will. I fell in love with the female lead, a perfect practical character.. though the book was contemporary during the 60s yet it will strike a chord with young readers now also.. the author’s opinions on communism or any isms was very clear and point blank.. the author’s philosophy and approach to life is very simple and gives u goose bumps.. explanations in some portions of the book may seem too tedious but still we can go through it.. ends just as every book lover hopes.

Doesn’t seem like a boring award winning book but as I said a thought provoking book. I finished it off I almost a single sitting.. a must read for telugu readers and others may grab a translated version.

[Aditya Annavajjhala · Rating 5 out of 5]

కొన్ని నవలల పేర్లు చదివి చాలా మోసపోతాం.. నేను కూడా అలానే పేరు చూసి మోసపోయిన నవల "పండిత పరమేశ్వర శాస్త్రి వీలునామా" రచయిత గోపిచంద్ గారు...

నవల పేరు చూడగానే ఇది ఎదో మన తెలుగు సినిమా డ్రామా లాంటి నవల అనుకున్నాను!! ఇలాంటి నవలకి సాహిత్య అకాడమీ అవార్డు కూడా ఇస్తారా అని ఆశ్చరపోయాను... కానీ నేను చాలా పొరబడ్డాను అని నవలా పరిచయంలో రచయిత రాసిన మాటల్లో తెలిసిపోయింది....

ఈ నవలలో కథ గురించి కన్న ప్రతి సన్నివేశం వెనుక ఉండే కారణాలు, ఆ కారణాలకు వ్యాఖ్యానం మనల్ని ఆలోచింపచేస్తాయి...

ఈ నవలలో గోపిచంద్ గారు ప్రతి పాత్రతో మనకి ఎన్నో విషయాలు కమ్యూనిజం నుంచి ఆధ్యాత్మిక చింతన వరకూ.. మానవ సంబంధాలు నుంచి రాజకీయాలు వరకు అన్ని మనతో చర్చిస్తారు... మనల్ని ఆలోచించేలా చేస్తారు కూడా!!!

సినిమాలో breaking the fourth wall అనే కాన్సెప్టుతో ప్రతి ప్రధాన పాత్ర మనతో directగా మాట్లాడుతాయి.. తమ అనుభవాలను, అభిప్రాయాన్ని చెప్తూ ఉంటాయి...!!

నవల చివరిలో aurobindo గారి భావాల్ని మనకి అర్థం అయ్యాలాగా చెప్పినా... వాటిని కూడా ఆలోచించమనే వదిలేస్తారు!!...

చివరిగా గోపిచంద్ గారి పాత్రలు, ఆలోచనలు మనతో పాటు నవల చదివేసిన తర్వాత కూడా ఉంటాయి అనడంలో సందేహం లేదు.. ఆ తోవలోనే సీతారమారావు తో పాటు కేశవమూర్తి కూడా మన ఆలోచనల్లో ఉంటాడు...

ఆధ్యాత్మిక, భౌతికవాదం మధ్య ఏది నిజం!!? ఏది మనిషికి పరిపూర్ణ ఆనందం ఇస్తుంది?? అనే ప్రశ్నలకి సమాధానం వెతికే వారు ఈ పుస్తకం తప్పక చదవాలి...

[Ravi Babu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A subtle take on society.

Gopichand's writing is best when he is describing about the personalities and mentalities of his characters. His portrayal of a rural village and many facets of it's people is fantastic. His pacing of the story is fluid like. His understanding of the politics in the turbulent times of 1950s is commendable. His views on differences between usage of formal and colloquial language for Telugu literature is something that would help us understand more about those times.

However, At the end of the book, the book slips into spirituality to find a solution for Protagonist's grief, for some 20 pages. In these 20 pages and Epilogue, the book tries to convince us that Humans have a higher evolution in the form of Spirituality which Darwinism, Rationalism, Scientists and Big Bang theory can not provide. This is where the story loses focus. This could have been avoided.

My final verdict is that even though the book appears to be self important at times, nowhere it tries to tell something juicy to be popular. It is what it is and let's you decide what you understand from it's characters and thereby the society.

[Subhash · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bland and over rated . Characters are morally black and white with almost no shades . Too many movies from that era followed the same simplistic template which made this an all too familiar and painful read .

[Rahmanuddin Shaik · Rating 4 out of 5]

ఒక పక్క మార్పును అసహనీయంగా చూసే పితృస్వామ్య సమాజం, మరోవైపు మార్పును స్వాగతించే కొత్త తరం - రెండు భావనలకు మధ్య నడిచే రగడను కళ్ళ ముందుంచే నవల.
సంస్కృతి పేరుతో పాతదంతా గొప్ప అనే భావనతో దుబారా ఖర్చు చేయాలా? మన కోసం మన వెంట మన పేరును శాశ్వతం చేసే మన ఆత్మీయులకు మన సంపదను ఇవ్వాలా అన్న సంశయానికి తనదైన సమాధానం రచయిత ఇచ్చారు. కొన్ని సందర్భాలు గుండె బరువెక్కేలా చేస్తాయి.

[Prasanna Dommu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read 'Asamarthuni Jeeva Yatra' I had high expectations from this book only to be thoroughly disappointed. This is a failed attempt to weave a fictional narrative with philosophical discourse on topics ranging from politics, spirituality, God and reincarnation, none of which have any direct bearing on the story arc. The debates about communism vs capitalism vs Marxism are outdated. At one point the author goes on a tangent for more than 10 pages to hard-sell the principles of Sri Aurobindo to the reader. All of these only serve to distract the reader from the narrative.

The book has no direction or a unifying theme. The characters are uni-dimensional with little development. Each character is either purely righteous or deceitful; there is no middle ground. The non linear narrative, and switching between first person narratives of different characters is unnecessary. Needless to say, the most disquieting aspect of this book is its misleading title. The titular character hardly has any presence in the story.

The protagonist Kesavamurthy is naïve to the point of being a foolish. He puts his future and reputation at stake for vicious and ungrateful people. He is not in control of his life, and is at the mercy of the vagaries of his friends. I find it hard to believe that a group of spiteful people could spend their lives in maligning someone, and that the people in the community are so ignorant of the truth.

Based on my recent reading experiences, it would appear that the classics of Telugu literature have not aged well and we are in dire need of fresh works that can connect with the current generation.

[Akkimi Anjaneyulu [అక్కిమి ఆంజనేయులు] · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book is not at all interesting, it is very tedious. We all know every award-winning book is not an entertainer and those are the very boring, same qualifications hold this book. Then anyone can ask me why you have given the five-star rating for this book. In literature, many types of genres are there. It is one type of book, it has the stuff to get five-star in a separate genre. If anyone wants to read for entertainment or boasting themselves has readers then it is not the good book for those type people. If someone wants to know about themselves and wants to get deep into their soul then it is a good book for them.

[Pavan Kumar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got cheated by the title by seeing the title i imagined melodramatic family drama according to the title but it's totally different from the title this book discusses about so many things.it speaks about ideologies, communism,faith systems, unconditional love, humanity, spirituality,inter caste marriage i think it spoke about all the things which human encounters in his lifetime.
Special thing in this book was in my thought process i felt like writer developed character totally based on our personality traits like jealousy,parsimonious or stingy,psychotic behaviour etc(totally my personal feeling).
This book has its own drawbacks major thing was it feels like preaching.

[Rama Krishna Reddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firstly, the title made no sense. The earlier title "Malina Manaskulu" (Tainted Souls) made sense narrative wise and would have been perfect.

I am a fan of Gopichand's "Asamarthuni Jeevayatra" and this novel too has similar themes: a protagonist whose values are consistently put in conflict, a swarm of friends/relatives who try to bring the protagonist down and a character that acts as a mirror to the protagonist. The novel portrays well, the thought process of a writer and his/her process of creating characters inspired from their real life environment through the character "Kesavamurthi". The story too is a sequence of socio-political events the character goes through in his journey as a writer and is reminiscent of the era it is set in. The story is conveyed through multiple points of view giving us an idea of how various characters think but all the PoVs are of the positive characters and none are narrated through anatagonist's point of view which would have made clear the intent and reasons for their antagonizing behavior.

The biggest problem though is the absence of character arcs for almost all the characters except "Sujatha". There is no real character transformation happening even after repeated badgering of ideals by other characters which felt odd to me given the spectacular dark transformations shown in the author's aforementioned novel. Also, there are occasional musings on political and spiritual topics, redundant comparison of western culture to Indian culture which were too deep for me and I felt they really didn't help the narrative. Similar narrative hindering musings can be observed in Butchi Babu's "Chivariki Migiledi". May be I would understand these musings better later in my life but now I have no clue what they signify.

Overall it's a good story but author's musings acting as hindrances.

[Revanth Ukkalam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Vyakhyata is not the omniscient God of modernism but a biased, reckless, and affectionate kathakudu of the later times. The times are evil, the world is cynical, and hence the hero is singular. A really beautiful character - Keshavamurti - one is left thinking about.

[Bhargav · Rating 2 out of 5]

A huge promise that fails to deliver for me.
The writing is not coherent. Felt to me like a spaghetti of beautiful thoughts that failed to be woven into a beautiful fabric.

Took me forever to finish this book.