Preface

Rajiyin piLLai has been one of my long-time favourites of Devan. It has a haunting simplicity and an enduring emotional appeal. And moreover, in its first form as a serialized story in Ananda Vikatan, it had some of the best black and white sketches by artist “Raju”. I used to spend more time with the sketches than the novel itself.

Raji’s son is an every-home, everyday child with a keen sense of observation, humour and humaneness. This book is more a novellette than a novel and is a colection of sketches from everyday life of a middle-class Madras family of the 1950s. Devan manages to capture the essence of the period in a very subtle but convincing way. He does not delve into too many details - the period is apparent more in the dialogues and the relationships between the protagonists. Devan also appears to have been influenced by Wodehousian fashion of writing and in other collection of short stories has followed literally the style of the Mulliner short stories, though innovating brilliantly in capturing an Indian flavour in the stories.

Rajiyin piLLai acquires even more poignancy when you consider the fact that Devan never had a child and yearned for one so much ! This reflects in most of his stories but particularly stirringly in this book.

This is Devan at his emotional best.