The Bruises

All of us get wounded in our life, physical and psychological. The world that we live on is a place having special expertise on inflicting them. People don't behave the way we want to, incidences happen that we feel are unjust to us. But we just lets them and walk off. Very few people care to record them and last week I happen to read a memoir of wounds inflicted by society on him by an extraordinary person.

It is a long time since I have read a Malayalam book. And I am happy to return back by reading Murivukal (The Bruises) by Soorya Krishnamurthy. He is the person behind Soorya Stage and Film Society, which organises the longest and most prestigious art show in India, the Soorya Festival. In this book, Krishnamurthy narrates many incidences from his illustrious life, many of which leaves a lump in the throat of the reader.

What leaves behind in mind after reading these snippets of memories are an array of human characters, each performing acts that shocks you in varied degrees. Artists who have no problem in performing for an empty audience for a whole night, an artist who want to abort her child if her performance is scheduled that year, the son who abuses his mother and the mother who defends him telling he is a puritan, a naked saint who demands more money when photographed and the photographer who does not click the pictures of kids whose parents did not pay him in a prize distribution function... It is a must read.