ஸீரோ டிகிரி -சாரு நிவேதிதா (Zero Degree - Charu Nivedita)

After reading two of Charu Nivedita's book, I can firmly say that this book is bit better than the last. But the story did not touch me, like a passing cloud story went passed me without any impact on me. A non linear and lippogrammatic novel  - the author should be appreciated for this effort.

But does these effort makes sense in context of the story, I have no idea.  First , this novel is  not one story book,may be collection of many stories with same central theme connecting all or all story can read independently without affecting the flow of the others. There is no structure,The author explores lust, sexual behaviours, human wants, aberrant sexual practices, violence against women, phone sex, mythology ,numerology and also expose our cultures veils.

As lyricist Vaali said "Charu writes brutal truth" , this novel is an example for it. But I can sense that the author tries to insert sex in all things a man do, again I'm not sure about this idea. Eroticism and Vulgarity are the two important pillars of this novel. This book also consists of poems, letters and essays. In fourth chapter page 28-30, there is a multiple choice questions for readers to answers, quite interesting .

The writing is plain and easy to understand and sometimes incomplete. I read somewhere that Charu used six styles of Tamil in this book.I think the author is not trying to tell a story, he just wants to break the shackles of so called "taboo" topics.As in all Charu's book there are lots of references to different books and writers - Kathy Acker,Cortazar,Kafka,Katherine Mansfield and  Oulipo writers etc.

While reading I felt irritated ,boring, shocked and surprised - a roller-coaster emotional journey. This is definitely not a easy read , not for the ones who avoid sexual content.  I took considerable time to read and reread . I still can not say whether I liked this novel or not. As someone said somewhere 'whether you like it or not one can not ignore Charu' it's true.

The first line in the book :

'அகதி முகாம்கள் உட்பட இன்று உலகளாவி பரந்து கிடக்கிறது தமிழ் சமூகம். அதற்கும், ஒட்டுமொத்த மனித குலத்துக்கும் அளிக்கப்பட்ட கொடையே ஸீரோ டிகிரி.'

I don't know what to say.

Then there is

தமிழில் நாவல்களில் ஏன் உலகத் தரத்தில் எழுதப்படவில்லை .
பட்டாக்கத்தி வாலுறையில் பென்சில் சீவும் பேனாக் கத்தியைப் போட்டுக்கொண்டிருப்பவர்களால் எப்படி வாள் சண்டை போட முடியும்.

This is the one thing I don't like at all from Charu, he just bounce on those who don't like his writings.

Nothing wrong in reading this book. Read at least to know the novel format ,very different. Read and decide yourself!

After typing the above, I went out to eat lunch, there was an Old man standing near the bookstall I have see him many times, most of the time talking about some writers or books .By coincidence he was talking about Charu. He said  "I read the interview(I don't know which interview) of Charu, in Nagarajan, Ku Pa and some olden days writers writings there was truth in it but I doubt the truth in Charu's writing.!!" . I don't know much about G.Nagarajan or Ku.Pa but definitely we can not ignore Charu.