Gopichand’s novels probe and unravel the existential anguish and inescapable hollowness of middleclass life. He brings out incense, the innocence and rationalizations of the incompetent , material success and vibrancy of the nonconformists and emptiness in the lives of the people bound by morals outdated. Time and tide of social change wait for none. People who commit ‘mistakes’ expand the range of their experience and enjoy their lives whereas the virtuous people suffer from unbearable narrowness. The writer shows the pathetic state of the moral people who are jealous of the free and justify their moral smugness. Tenderness in human relations, vibrancy of new way of life and human choice as a source of pleasure or pain are portrayed in detail and in depth in the novels of Gopichand which move the readers’ hearts profoundly.
In his ‘Sidhilalayam’ ( Dilapidated temple ), the writer shows how a ‘good’ husband fails to understand his ‘backward’ wife who seeks true love outside the prison of narrow family life. He pleads her to come back in vain and he realizes that his happiness lies in getting rid of the fear of public opinion and starting a new life with a woman who comes to him.
His ‘Gatinchani Gatam ‘ ( The past undead) is one of the best novelettes on partition. Hussain Khan, a rajakar rejects his mother’s advice and commits heinous deeds. Once he molests a Hindu girl called Parvathi and appropriates the land of one Danaiah. After police action, he runs to Pak but comes back unable to find life he expected there. His former colleagues now turn their back on him. He comes to know that the girl whom he harmed treated him as her husband till the last and left her child under the care of an old muslim man. his own mother has been looked after by Danaiah , A Hindu who builds her tomb in his garden. These facts change Hussain who repents over his mother’s grave and his tears cleanse his evil soul and expose the religious identity and highlights humanism.
Gopichand’s ‘Gadiapadani talupulu’ ( Doors unbolted) shows the shock of an idealist young man Srinivasa Rao . He turns into an ascetic when he realizes the real life of his ideal woman Koteswaramma whom he loves outside the wedlock. Koteswaramma also realizes the pain caused to Rao and tries to find out his whereabouts. Both of them meet in an ashram and an accidental meeting make them outcasts from the ashram. Srinivasa Rao again runs away to find solace in asceticism whereas Koteswaramma who still worships her first husband retires from the world of power, politics, influence and nonconformist life seeks reclusive life. The writer , a common friend of both Rao and Koeteswaramma offers his help, sympathy, and reads Bhagavatam in her last days praises her rational outlook and widened range of her perspective.
His ‘Premopahatulu ‘ ( The Rejected of love) shows the machinations of a modern couple Jaya Ramarao and Sundari who abet and condone their mutual affairs in the marriage of their convenience. Sundari tries to lure Kalyani, who comes from Nizvid (small town ) to stay with her for a while till she finds a house for her husband and herself in Hyderabad. The couple slowly try to build a web around Kalyani through their words and creation of ‘situations.’ When they go to a cinema hall, Kalyani sees true intentions of Rama rao and for her the couple are devils in league. The modern husband Rao warns and intimidates Sundari to convince Kalyani to come to him or face his wrath. Kalyani is surprised at the change in Sundari, the intelligent girl into a woman of cunningness who values her pleasure at the cost of others.
In his novel, Yamapasham ( The Rope of Yama) , Gopichand has exposed the life of a clerk in the manner of Chekhov or Kafka but with Indian realistic spirit intact. Narayana Rao is a clerk whose life has belied his ideals and turned him in to over analytical, impractical , self-justifying and remorseful over his lagging behind in the race of life. He has seven children , wife down and lusterless, fear of boss, rebellion of heart , timidity of brain, economic troubles, middle class egoism, hopes dashed, ignorance of world, innocence of secret of rising in hierarchy, self- pity and condemnation of the upstart etc. His eldest daughter Arundhathi says that they have confined to their pigeonholes and put up with insults in the name of conditions. Narayan Rao’s middle class self is too steeped in struggle for existence in the mould of morals dying and dead. Yamapasham is nothing other than outdated morals trying to dam the river life that flows on and on irrespective of murmurs of people left behind. The lives of many bound in files of officialdom suffer from yamapasham of red tapism. Gopichand’s protagonist says that man has to live on instead of escaping or getting drowned in the stream. There are no problems or solutions but life pure.
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