ആറാം വിരൽ | Aaram Viral

by Malayattoor Ramakrishnan

ഉരുളിമോഷണക്കേസിൽ കുടുങ്ങിയ മുളങ്കുന്നം തറവാട്ടിലെ വേദരാമനെ വിരലടയാളമെടുക്കാൻ കൊണ്ടുവന്നപ്പോൾ ഹെഡ്കോൺസ്റ്റബിളാണ് കണ്ടുപിടിച്ചത് - ഇടതു കൈയിൽ ആറുവിരലുകൾ. ആറാം വിരൽ ഭാവി ശ്രേയസ്സിനെ സൂചിപ്പിക്കുന്നു എന്ന് മുൻഷി സാർ. ഒടുവിൽ ആറാം വിരലിനു പ്രകാശം കൈവന്നു. ദേവരാമൻ ദേവൻബാബയായി. അപൂർവമായ ശക്തിവിശേഷവും പ്രവാചകത്വവുമുള്ള യോഗി. നിഗ്രഹാനുഗ്രഹ ശക്തികളുള്ള ബാബയുടെ ആറാം വിരൽ കാലപരിക്രമത്തിൽ ആശ്രമത്തിലെ താമരപ്പൂമണ്ഡപത്തിൽ പില്ക്കാലതലമുറകൾക്കുള്ള കഥയായി അവശേഷിച്ചു. മലയാറ്റൂരിന്റെ ഭാവന നിറം പകരുന്ന ഈ അപൂർവ്വ നോവൽ അനുവാചകന് പുതിയൊരനുഭവം പകർന്നു കൊടുക്കും.

Genres: Fiction

298 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Malayattoor Ramakrishnan was born on 30 May 1927 as K. V. Ramakrishna Iyer in Kalpathi in Palakkad (Palghat) in a family of Kerala Iyers.
After earning the B.L. degree he started his career as an Advocate.Later he started his work as a sub-editor in The Free Press Journal in Mumbai. He was a contributing cartoonist to Shankar's Weekly. He is also credited with the first Malayalam translation of Bram Stoker's Dracula apart from translating Sherlock Holmes novels into Malayalam.
In 1957, he entered the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).The memoirs of his long career as a bureaucrat are narrated in his work Service Story – Ente IAS Dinangal.
alayattoor wrote his best known work - Verukal (Roots) in 1965. It is a semi-autobiographical work which tells the story of a family of Tamil speaking Iyers who settled in Kerala. This won him the Kerala Sahithya Academy Award.[1] In 1981, he resigned from the Indian Administrative Service in order to devote his time to writing. It was during the period 1981 to 1997 that his most famous works emerged from his pen. Among his other famous novels are Yakshi, Yanthram, Nettoor Mathom and Amritham Thedi. For Yanthram, he was awarded the Vayalar Award.

Reviews

[Dr. Charu Panicker · Rating 3 out of 5]

ഉരുളിക്കള്ളനായ വേദരാമൻ തന്റെ ആറാം വിരലിന്റെ ശക്തിയിൽ പ്രവചനങ്ങൾ നടത്തുന്നു. പ്രവചനങ്ങൾ സത്യമാകുന്നതോടുകൂടി വേദരാമൻ വേദജിയും പിന്നീട് വേദൻ ബാബയും ആകുന്നു. രാഷ്ട്രീയവും അദ്ധ്യാത്മികതയും കോർപ്പറേറ്റുകളും കൂടിച്ചേർന്ന് ഇന്നത്തെ കാലത്തും നിലനിൽക്കുന്ന അവിഹിത ബന്ധത്തിന്റെ നേർകാഴ്ചയാണ് ഈ പുസ്തകം. മനുഷ്യദൈവങ്ങളുടെ സഹായത്തോടെ രാഷ്ട്രീയത്തിനും മറ്റു പരിപാടികൾക്കുമായി എങ്ങനെയൊക്കെ കാശ് സമ്പാദിക്കാമെന്ന് ഇതിൽ കാട്ടിത്തരുന്നു. പഴയ രചന ആണെങ്കിലും കാലികപ്രസക്തമാണിത്.

[Madhulika Liddle · Rating 2 out of 5]

What hope in life can there be for a poor village boy who, at the age of fifteen, is arrested as a thief? Especially if rumor is rife in the village about who his real father is—not the scion of a decaying but once glorious family, but a long-ago singer who had come by and seduced another man’s wife? Especially, too, if the boy himself is no paragon of virtue: he is sleeping with the very woman who had once been his wet nurse; he is fond of arrack; and he does not seem to have any qualms about stealing from the village temple itself.

But Vedaraman, or Vedan, the protagonist of Malayatoor Ramakrishnan’s The Sixth Finger, despite being saddled with all these obvious drawbacks and flaws (not to mention a father felled by a stroke), has one thing that others do not. He has a sixth finger on his left hand, an appendage that seems useless until one day when it seems to come to life and glows in the dark. Vedan, already taken under the wing of a highly respected old gentleman, soon realizes that his finger is not merely ‘lit up by fireflies’, but has greater powers, magical powers. Even as he detects water underground and enables his mentor to dig a well to reach it, even as he foretells the death of a man he has not even met as yet—Vedan is changing, evolving. And this change accelerates, catapulting this rural boy to a godman, a Baba who is worshipped and revered by politicians and industrialists, a Baba who plays kingmaker…

… yet, is it only Vedan who makes men chief ministers and who, through that uncanny ability to see into the future, is able to make men rich and powerful? Because if Vedan is the kingmaker, then those who surround him—Chinnappa, Madhavan Nair, Arunagiri, Surekha—are godmakers. For their own reasons and to fulfill their own ambitions, these people transform the young man into a Bhagwan with devotees in the thousands.

The Sixth Finger, published (in the original Malayalam) in 1994, has been published in its English translation at a singularly appropriate time: what with the connections between politics, big business and religion growing ever stronger (and ever dirtier?), the story of Vedan and his sixth finger rings a bell. Ramakrishnan’s story weaves in different elements of this trend: the nexus between religious cults and politics, for example. The far-from-exemplary private lives of those who present a pristine façade to an adoring public; and the manipulations and machinations that go on behind the scenes.

What makes this book interesting is the relevance of its storyline, and the way Ramakrishnan slowly but surely traces the path of his hero, from Vedaraman the village thief to Baba, the godman at his grand ashram. The journey is an interesting one, and Vedan himself is an interesting character. Not by any means the quintessential ‘hero’, he is a tormented, tortured soul, constantly haunted by the past—his own, his family’s, and that of the woman who made him her lover when he regarded her as his mother. Yet, Vedan is not the innocent. He connives, too, in the endeavours of the movers and shakers, to achieve their mutual goals. He is not a bystander: he is an active participant in all that he—and they—are able to achieve.

The sleaze of Baba and his cohorts becomes a little long-drawn out and repetitive after a while. So too do the rambling, often vague references to spirituality. Both tend to dilute the impact of what could have been a gripping novel of power and politics. Prema Jayakumar’s translation tends to leave the occasional word unexplained, but is otherwise competent.

(From my review for The New Indian Express: http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifes...)

[Athul Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

ഭക്തിപ്രസ്ഥാനങ്ങളുടെ ഉള്ളറകള്‍ വരച്ചുകാട്ടുന്ന നോവല്‍. എടുത്ത് പറയത്തക്ക പ്രത്യേകതകളൊന്നും ഇല്ലാത്ത രചന. വെറുതെ വായിക്കാം, അത്ര തന്നെ!

[Deepak K · Rating 2 out of 5]

An uninteresting story about Vedaraman, who as a teen is caught stealing a temple property, repents and then becomes a well-known godman, only to relinquish his powers at the end. His aaram viral is the source of his God-like powers of predicting future and healing the sick. There are power struggles, politics and many more strands interspersed, but none of them were appealing. I was waiting for the book to end. A big disappointment from the author of the super-impressive Yakshi

[Ajay Varma · Rating 4 out of 5]

ഒരേസമയം നമ്മെ കൂട്ടു ചേർക്കാനും വേർപ്പെടുത്താനും കഴിവുള്ള ഒരു ആയുധമാണ് മതം. ആ മതത്തിൻ്റെയും അതിൻ്റെ കൂട്ടാളികളുടെയും കള്ളക്കളികൾ തുറന്നുകാണിക്കുന്ന ഒരു മനോഹരമായ നോവലാണ് ആറാം വിരൽ. വേദരാമൻ എന്ന ഒരു മനുഷ്യൻ്റെ അസാധാരണമായ ജീവിതമാണ് ഈ നോവൽ. ഒരു ഉരുളി മോഷ്ടിച്ചതിൽ നിന്ന് തുടങ്ങി വേദൻ ബാബയായി അവസാനിക്കുന്ന വേദരാമൻ്റെ സംഭവബഹുലമായ ജീവിതം. തീർച്ചയായും വായിക്കേണ്ട ഒരു പുസ്തകം തന്നെയാണ് ആറാം വിരൽ.

[Neha · Rating 3 out of 5]

വേദരാമൻ്റെ ആറാം വിരൽ അവനെ വേദൻ ബാബ ആക്കിയ കഥ. പണത്തിനും പ്രശസ്തിക്കും സ്ഥാനങ്ങൾക്കും വേണ്ടി കുറെ ആളുകൾ മതവും രാഷ്ട്രീയവും ആത്മീയതയും ചേർത്ത് നടത്തിയ ചൂഷണങ്ങളുടെ ഇരകളാണ് വേദരാമനും അവനെ ആരാധിക്കുന്ന ജനങ്ങളൂം. വല്ലാതെ മുഷിപ്പിക്കാതെ വായിച്ചു തീർക്കാനാകുന്ന പുസ്തകം.

[Aravind Jayan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple, Interesting and well written.
Brilliant take on Oedipal theme

[Sruthy Pisharady · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is set in the 1970s and 1980s, and it captures the contrasts in the lives of villagers and city dwellers. The major political and social events that take place in that period is also extensively described. The first half of the book is about the protagonist Vedaraman’s childhood. The village setting and its characters are beautifully described. The author has carefully captured the caste system, which was deep-rooted during that period in Kerala. This book is political fiction that has a satirical take on politicians, businessmen and godmen. He also mocks the fake sense of morality that exists in society at large. Throughout the book, the author has tried to make the reader uncomfortable with varying ideas of right and wrong. The transformation of the character of Vedaraman who later becomes Vedan Baba is fantastic. We can very well appreciate how he evolves from a naïve young lad who was exploited by the maid Kozhukatta Paru to the powerful and crafty yet well-intentioned Vedan Baba. The book becomes slightly slow-paced in between but picks up speed towards the end. I came across some reviews that the end of the book was predictable, but honestly, I had not anticipated that ending. The translation was able to capture the overall feel of the book, but I would have liked a glossary to explain some of the terms which were used in Malayalam itself for non-Malayalis to get a better sense of the context.

[Suyogaya Awasthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

• “Sometimes something catastrophic can occur in a split second that changes a person's life forever; other times one minor incident can lead to another and then another and another, eventually setting off just as big a change in a body's life”

• The length of the book remains to be 376 pages and the overall theme of the book revolves around the period of 1970s and 1980s with the main character that remains the cynosure is that Vedaraman who happens to be a thief and is replete with all sorts of strangeness with the primary one being having the 6th Finger and at the same time many stories revolve around him casting doubts over his character as well. The chapters of the book have been designed in such a fashion that they weave a tale of mystery and suspense and depict the true side of our society as well and do so in a consistent fashion.

• The writing style of the book has been kept fairly simple and easy to understand with the main focus of the author is making the readers aware of the surrounding circumstances and the relevant context thereby reflecting the intent of the author that is to create an engaging plot which is streamlined in nature and the same gets materialized in the book at present thus making it a must-read for anyone willing to go for a dynamic read.

[Rajeev Pillai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent Novel, Description of dream sequences are wonderful, and rare in Malayalam novels.

[Naja · Rating 1 out of 5]

ok