Balakumaran...some thoughts...

Recently I read "Thanga Churul", a novel by balakumaran. Vasu has given this book.This is a story about a person who is a railway employee. He is very good at creating Tanjore paintings. The story tells about his life in terms of his painting profession and marriage life and about his masterpiece work.

As a reader what kind of book is this? What it conveys? What is the 'karu' or theme of this story? Nothing. It says about a life in a pleasant way.The life has nothing to do with common man's day to day challenge or nothing to do on an extraordinary man.

I am seeing balakumaran is cheating himself. He tries to copy thi.janakiraman in an ugly way. Bala's these kind of novel reduces the quality of novel.Again I am not comparing balakumaran against somebody like ramani chandran or pattukottai prabhakar.I am comparing balakumaran against prabanchan,thi.janakiraman, sundara ramasamy etc.

Since bala is writing many books, his books contains many redundant incidents.He should reduce his frequency.

I am seeing the following context in many of the balakumaran's novels, including this novel.

After marriage bride and groom goes for honey moon. The honeymoon spot is kumbakonam/thanjavur and surrounding places. Peculiar is both bride and groom's parents will be accompanying the couple. All will be happy,there wont be any difference in opinion.Everything is harmonious.Bala shows a symmetrical world.But this is very far from the real world.

I dont know how bala kind of person falls under this trap every time. This redundancy makes the novel very weak.

Again there is nothing in this story to oppose or support strongly.This makes the novel a simple fairy tale.This dwarfs the regular readers. Normal conversation will be interesting only in new base (kadhai kalam), otherwise it creates boredom. These kind of novels dwarfs bala himself, there is a potential danger of these novels becoming a 'Gnanabhoomi or kumudam bhakthi'.

Because theism and literature are separate entities. You can blend them, but one should not dissolve into another, especially at this 2007.

Here one more question arises. Can a non-hindu or atheist read balakumaran's novel? What will be the perception of balakumaran novels in non-hindus mind. I am not insisting that he should encompass non-hindus also, but just eager!

One more question, is the 'vivid description' from balakumaran dilutes the novels of balakumaran? I suspect. Is he concentrating more on 'vivid description' than the story?. I think he is getting lost in his own words. This is another form of "narcissism”. Narcissism of the novel over the novel itself. There may be better ways to describe this. But I am writing this as far as I know. I am seeing the strong vividness and characterization engulfs his novels.

Here we can compare the vividness and characterization and description of sundara ramaswamy against balakumaran.
Vasu, as you have read in 'oru puliyamarathin kadhai', the description or varnanai or characterization helps the story acts as a pleasant support to the course of the story. It is like mundhiri in payasam.We cannot more mundhiri than payasam in payasam, am i correct?


When reading balakumaran's book or novel, I am seeing letters from readers by praising balakumaran. Those letters are always praising the novels. No review or vimarsanam at all. Is it possible? I dont think, any product will have its merits and demerits. If no letters are displayed for public means something wrong in it. No vimarsanam or no suya vimarsanam.Balakumaran is becoming like kamal I think, he is becoming a great deaf.

Another bad thing about bala is giving a single strong but inaccurate and inadequate answer to questions. For e.g. I read the following question in one of the novels,

Q: What is the worst thing in Chennai?

Ans: "Parking vans and cars of travel agencies in the pedestrian way". Then he justifies how it affects the traffic and so on.

Yes indeed it is a problem. But it definitely is not the most worst thing in Chennai. There are more stronger problems. But bala never says "There are many things, one of the problems is .....". He directly says one single answer. There by he stops other possibilities.

Question2:

Q: I heard you have gone to Hyderabad. What is very interesting about the city?
Ans: "Bangles. Hyderabad is having a very big bangle bazaar.” Then he describes about the structure of bangles and how Indian women are feeling by wearing bangles.

For any question related to society especially Indian society he has single answer. That is the most worrying part about balakumaran. Because, Indian society is the second most complex society (after Africa) in the world. This is the result of sociologists around the globe. So bala's single reply makes naive readers think that he is correct and hides and reduces the complexity of the problem.

Enakkul pesugiren , a self-improvement book by balakumaran.

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First enakkul pesugiren, is a good book. It is an excellent book, it should be kept as a diary.

Definitely, this book takes good case studies, analyses and comes to a practical and concrete conclusion. Then starts analyzing solution or ways to mitigate the problems and slowly finding the solution to the problem. The problem here are behavioral problems says attitude, deportment etc. Here solutions are not one time solution but we can say practices to mitigate the problem or to eradicate the problems and practices to prevent those problems in future.

Of course, all the practices are alive because of the persistence in usage.

Personally, this book gives me many ideas and practices to solve my day-to-day behavioral problems, my deportment, and my noesis towards my professional and personal life.

So this book is good at micro level, that is for me.

But what I want to know is, who are the target audience for this book? I will/can not say, all the people are target audience for this book. I am seeing many persons who possess the qualities those balakumaran describes as the results of proposed best practices, but without following any of those practices. Definitely, they don’t know balakumaran.

In other words, Bala proposes meditation as the best way to focus our concentration. Yes this is true, meditation definitely helps people to develop concentration, to be more alert. But some people are more alert than others without meditation or other things. How this happens? Are we human being are the result of some permutation and combination of chromosomes and genes? Is the persistence, will power, IQ, intelligence, attitude all are coming by those permutation and combination? Note that here I am not talking about 'winning' but about the persistence of individual person to win!

Is this by nature? The scientific notion of "All minds are of equal capacity!" is false? I do not know.

But in a materialistic way, I want to follow these practices and occupy a good position in my life.

But my question remains alive!

Thanks Vasu, for giving this book.

Thanks balakumaran, for making this fantastic book. Actually, the word thanks will not equate what I feel. You are a good teacher for all mentally weak people. Unfortunately, many people in this place are mentally weak including me.

I think this is first of the self-improvement book that came in Tamil which identifies the actual problem of common person in tamilnadu. This can act as a base for other self-improvement books.