Oru Puliamarathin kadhai -- The Story of a Tamarind Tree

Author:Sundara Ramasamy

Great book.Its a story of a tamarind tree.The center of the village was a Tamarind tree,it was a very old tree ,the central bus stand was also nearer,so that place surrounding tamarind tree is always busy with people.The author narrates the story of the village people and their habits with Tamarind tree at the center.
First Damodaran guru's story telling and his ability to keep the attention of everyone to him was told beautifully,specially the story of Chellathai's death.Then the entire story is moves with two main characters Ali and Thaamu.The author really brings the people of that period alive with typical tamil and their way of doing things.Everything is there in this story politics,King,business.These two guys fighting in their business,politics and atlast they both ends up in jail.The plan to cut the tamarind tree was told beautifully and the character Isakki , the journalist was simply superb.Most of the journalist are like him now.. Atlast they cut the tree as it was poisoned by Ali's man.

Overall a great book. In my hometown Pamban ,we too had a tamarind tree at the entrance of our village.That place is called 'Tamarind tree bus stop' or ' Puliamara bus stop',even after the tree was cut and completely destroyed we are still calling the place with the same name. Like in this novel many things happened in those days around the tree, the fruit vendors,the tea stalls ,balloon vendors etc.. when i was child thats our market place.Many meetings were held in that place. Great memory.

This book is a classic on its own.

'Oru Puliamarathin kadhai' is the first Indian book to be translated in Hebrew.