பாட்டு வாத்தியார்

Written for a short story contest. Already published earlier in English as 'The Music Teacher'

வந்தவருக்கு சுமார் நாற்பது வயது இருக்கும். வியர்த்து போயிருந்தது. நெற்றியில் கும்குமம் இசையமைப்பாளர் சங்கர் கணேஷில் ஒருவரை நினைவுப்படுத்தியது. சிறிய தொப்பை, முகத்தில் ஒரு அசட்டு சிரிப்பு. நிச்சயமாக பாடத்தெரிந்தவர் போல் இல்லை.

"காலைல பாட்டு, கிடார் சொல்லி குடுக்க ஆள் வேணும்னு போன் செய்தது?"

"நான்தான். உள்ள வாங்க".

சோபாவில் காலை பரத்தி அமர்ந்தார்.

"யாருக்கு பாட்டு?"

"எனக்குத்தான் சார்" என்றேன்.

"கிடார்?"

"என் தம்பிக்கு"

சிறிது நேரம் ஏதோ பேசிக்கொண்டு இருந்தோம். தனக்கு 'கிஸோர் குமார்' பாடல்கள் மிகவும் பிடிக்கும் என்றார். என்னை பார்த்து திரும்பி "உங்களுக்கு யிந்தி தெரியுமா" என்றார். சிரிப்பை அடக்கிக்கொண்டு கொஞ்சம் தெரியும் என்றேன்.

"கிடார் கத்துக்கொடுக்க வேற யாராவது வருவாங்களா?"

"இல்ல மேடம் நான்தான் பாட்டு, கிடார், ட்ரம்ஸ், பியானோ எல்லாம் சொல்லி குடுப்பேன்", எனக்கு ஏனோ 'சிங்காரவேலன்' கமல் நினைப்பு வந்தது.

என் தம்பியுடன் உள்ளறைக்கு சென்றார். சிறிது நேரத்தில் உள்ளிருந்து 'டொய்ய் டொய்ய்' என்று சத்தம் கேட்க ஆரம்பித்தது.

வெளியில் வந்து என்னை பார்த்து “அப்போ ஆரம்பிக்கலாமா என்றார்”

அதற்க்குள் நான் துணைக்கு அம்மாவையும் பக்கத்து வீட்டில் வசித்த அக்காவையும் சேர்த்திருந்தேன்.

“ஸார் சுருதிப்பெட்டி?”

“அடுத்தமுறை பாத்துக்கலாம். ச-ப-ச பாடுங்க”

உடனே நான் பாட, “ஆஹா சுருதி பெட்டி மாதிரியே இருக்கு” என்றார். என் கச்சேரி கனவுகள் கொஞ்சம் மங்கினாற்ப்போல் தோன்றியது. வாத்தியாரோ விவேகானந்தரை கண்ட பரமஹம்சரைப்போல் பரவசத்தோடு பார்த்துக்கொண்டிருந்தார்.

“ஜண்ட வரிசை சரளி வரிசை பாடலாமா?” என்றதும், நாங்கள் கோரசாக பாட, அவர் உற்சாகம் தாங்காமல் வெறியோடு தொடையில் அப்பளம் தட்டி கொண்டே அமர்ந்த இடத்தில் ஆட, ஒரே கோலாகலம்.

இன்னும் அவர் பாடி கேட்கவில்லையென்று, நான் “சார், ஒரு சின்ன பாட்டு சொல்லிக்குடுங்க” என்றேன்.

“எல்லாமே பெரிய பாட்டுதான் தெரியும். அதான் யோசிக்கறேன்.” என்றார்.

நான் விடுவதாக இல்லை. “ஒரே ஒரு பாட்டு”.

“சரி. சிம்ப்பிளா ஒண்ணு சொல்லி தரேன்”.

அதற்க்குபின் அவர் போட்ட சத்தத்தை இசை என்று சொன்னால், கலைவாணி வீணையால் என் மண்டையிலே போடுவாள்,

அம்மாவுக்கு குசும்பு ஜாஸ்தி. வேண்டாம் என்று சொல்லி அனுப்புவதை விட்டு, “ஃபீஸ் எவ்ளோ?” என்றாள்.

“மாசம் மூவாயிரம்”.

“நாலு பேருக்குமா?”

அவர் அதிர்ந்துப்போய் “இல்ல மேடம்! ஒருத்தருக்கு”

“ஐயோ, ரொம்ப அதிகம் சார், எங்க பட்ஜெட்டுக்கு சரியா வராது!’

அம்மாவிடம் ஜெயிக்க முடியாது என்று அடுத்த அரைமணிநேரத்தில் அவருக்கு புரிந்துவிட்டது. அழாதகுறையாக, “சரி, எவ்வளவுனா ஒத்துப்பீங்க”.

“எல்லாருக்கும் சேத்து மூவாயிரம்னா போனா போறது. உங்களுக்கு கம்மினு தோணினா வேண்டாம் பரவால்ல” என்றாள் அம்மா.

‘நீங்க ரொம்ப ஆர்வமா இருக்கறது பாத்தா எனக்கு மனசு கேக்கலே, சரி நாலாயிரம் வெச்சிக்கலாம்”

“யோசிச்சு சொல்றேன் சார். நீங்க கிளம்புங்க”.

கிளம்பிப்போனதும், மடை திறந்து விட்டாற்ப்போல் எல்லோரும் பேச ஆரம்பித்தோம்.

“எனக்கென்னமோ அவ்ளோ திருப்தியா இல்ல” என்று அக்கா மெதுவாக ஆரம்பிக்க, எல்லோரும் சிரிக்க ஆரம்பித்தோம்.

“கிஸோர் குமாராம்.. யிந்தியாம்”

“நான் சுருதிப்பெட்டியாம்”

 'டொய்ய் டொய்ய்' என்று கர்மசிரத்தையாக இன்னும் கிடாரை தடவிக்கொண்டிருந்த தம்பியை அழைத்துவந்து, நடந்த கூத்து பற்றி நான் கூற, சிரிப்பு சத்தத்தில் அழைப்புமணி அடித்தது கொஞ்சநேரம் கேட்கவில்லை.

போய் பார்த்தால் மீண்டும் வாத்தியார். “புக் மறந்துட்டேன்”.

அம்மா சொன்னாள் “யோசிச்சு பார்த்தேன். மூவாயிரம் கூட அதிகம் தான். எங்களுக்கு கிளாஸ் வேண்டாம்”.

அம்மா முகத்தில் தெரிந்த தீர்மானத்தை பார்த்து அவர், “அப்ப இன்னிக்கு கிளாசுக்கு ஆயிரம் ரூபாய் குடுங்க” என்றார்.

“என்னா சொல்லிக்குடுத்தீங்க? பசங்க அவங்களே பாடினாங்க”.

“நான் டாக்சில வந்தேன். அதுக்காவது பணம் குடுங்க”.

“நானா உங்களை டாக்சில வரச்சொன்னேன்? வேணும்னா பஸ்சார்ஜ் தரேன்”.

“ஒண்ணும் வேணாம்” என்று கோபமாக சென்று விட்டார்.

அடக்கி வைத்திருந்த சிரிப்பு வெடித்து கிளம்பியது. எல்லோரும் ஒரு சேர பேச துவங்க, “டாக்சில வந்தேன்னு கதை விட்றார். அவர் வந்தபோது மூச்சிரைத்துக்கொண்டிருந்தார்” என்றான் தம்பி.

“இனிமே அடையாறு டைம்ஸ்ல பாத்தேன் அப்பிடினு யாரோ அசடை கூப்பிடற வேலை எல்லாம் வெச்சிக்காதே. கடா வயசு ஆறது, பாட்டு க்ளாஸெல்லாம் தூக்கி பரணைல போடு போதும்.” என்று ப்ரஹ்மாஸ்த்திரத்தை விட்டு விட்டு சென்றாள் அம்மா.

I am an Iyer and I am not evil!

I have been in 2 minds about writing this post, because I didn't want it to seem like a rant. A longish post, but there is a point I am trying to make..
And an important disclaimer - I was brought up in a family where we were taught and made to recite shlokas everyday and our only lesson on religious differences was that we used different names for Gods. I don't remember my mother telling us that we were Brahmins/ upper caste or anything. It didn't seem necessary at that time. 
In class 4, when I joined a new school in Coimbatore, a girl from my class walked up to me and asked me if I was a Brahmin and I replied 'Yes' and felt extremely ashamed to talk about caste etc., in school. By then I had heard the term from the others and had asked my parents what the word meant. The explanation was again very simple - we were people who do not 'normally' eat meat and we worshipped the Hindu deities. 
My parents didn't think of caste pride or Hindu pride. My mother studied at a Christian institution and proudly sang Christian songs in tamil. 
My best friend from school was/is a Christian. We rarely discussed religion. It wasn't something as bad as 'tolerance' - it was more of 'acceptance'. We never thought of forcing the other person to accept our beliefs. But we discussed her catechism classes on Sundays like we discussed about everything else. I was curious to visit a Church and she took me to visit one. I never asked if she was keen to visit a temple, but I know she happily took the Vibhuti often, when I distributed some to my school friends. It wasn't about appeasement. It was just another facet of the person.
I heard the term 'Brahmin' and 'Paarpaan' more from people around me, than within the family. As we grew older, the voices became louder. 
My identity wasn't what I chose for myself. It was already created by people around me. At school, during a particular nasty incident, a teacher made a loud remark in the classroom that 'some people who are from the forward community, may think they are better than others'. It shook me completely. She was the teacher and I wasn't allowed to react. 
A rather nasty sports teacher beat up my then-7-year old brother and never missed a chance to insult me, hurt me physically in school. My parents were told that he hated Brahmins and that if he was questioned, he would raise it with the school teachers' union or something. So we were asked to chin up and accept the abuse.
In the supposedly cosmopolitan set-up of our apartment complex, there were often jokes made at our expense - more about our food habits than anything else - that we ate grass and had no idea how tasty meat was. We were also told that Brahmins were shameless and spineless - we weren't supposed to react - because in TN, you are allowed to say things like that and get away with it. 
I could not get into an Engineering college. And when I applied for a science course in an arts college, I was driven away by the peon saying I was an FC and hence an application form would not be given. I was upset, but was forced to beg the semi-literate guy for an application form.

My accent was made fun of at college and later at work.
People called me 'maami' and spoke in a supposed Brahmin accent. I was supposed to smile because it was all in jest, right? (Try speaking to an African American in what is touted as their lingo and you will be branded a racist).
A close friend told me that her uncles 'hated' Brahmins - just like that - to my face - even though they knew no Brahmins.

I am not traumatized. I have not had to emerge stronger from anything. I made my life - engineering degree or not. Most of us have done so. Till date, I have not asked what community a person belongs to, because it does not really matter to me. A person is a friend irrespective of her/ his gender/ race/ religion etc. But I am not ashamed of what I am either - not for being a woman, or a Tamil or a Hindu or being born in a Brahmin family.
Yet, I do find it tiresome that the jokes have not stopped. Worse still, the abuse has only gone up. I saw S.Ve.Shekhar's live video a couple of days back, where he had made some good points. But the comments below were full of hatred. How dare he ask people not to hurt Brahmins!! How dare he say that Brahmins had not been involved in any of the caste clashes in TN or elsewhere! He was a Brahmin - not a human!

So what if we are willing to accept those who came to India a few hundred years ago, as our brothers? We will continue to believe in the spurious Aryan Invasion theory, because we need a target that will not retaliate!

Interestingly many people took offence with one of the statements he made - that we should think of Religion and Caste as our parents and not abuse one another's parents. People were furious that he wasn't talking about eradicating caste itself! And I was wondering about which planet these people were living in! Till the time the reservations exist, caste will not be eradicated. Till the time job applications and other government applications have a caste column, it is not going to be out of the picture. Caste and religion, in India, like parents are something we are born into. We do not get to choose them. We may treat a friend/ any person disrespectfully, but are usually respectful towards their parents. They may never become our parents, but we still accord them respect. And it was in this vein that I think SVS made that statement.

Forget India. My then-6-year-old niece was told by her tamil teacher in Singapore, that she was a Brahmin and would hence not be able to talk tamil well. The kid was confused because like my parents, my sister did not think it was necessary for the children to know about caste etc., but that day she had to explain in vague terms at least what it meant. So till the mindset of people changes, caste will continue to exist.

Those who use abusive or other type of language to protest against the evils of the caste system, please take a minute to sit down, do some research on where it still prevails, and on who were involved in some of the honour killings in TN, on where untouchability is still practised, on where a 2-glass system still prevails. Go back to your villages and make sure they are not in that list. Think back to how your ancestors behaved and also whether you would like to be punished for something they may or may not have done 100 years ago. The forces that want to divide the country have openly stated that casteism is the fault line in India and that they will use it to divide the country and cause mayhem.

Life, as a Brahmin in Tamilnadu, is something that cannot be explained in any number of posts. For all my well-wishing, well-intentioned friends - I don't ask for sympathy. No matter how it seems, but we are people too and just treat us that way

The Lunchbox

(My first and so far only attempt at a short story..)
Seema was fuming.

“Look at what your sister has given me!”, she yelled at her mother, “A Plastic lunchbox with just 2 compartments!! This is what I get for helping out with serving food and clearing up the dishes during the function! She has done this to insult me!”.

Rajam was wondering what had gotten into her daughter. “It is a return gift. Mythili has always been that way – giving away cheap presents. Why do you make such a big fuss? If you don’t like it, give it to someone else.”.

“She gave all the others stainless steel lunchboxes. Your sisters hate us and our family. She has done this out of spite. I know what made her do this. Her good-for-nothing daughter is moving to London in a few months. She knows my husband’s job is in trouble and wants to mock me.”.

“I am sure it is nothing like that”, said Rajam. “But wait, you said her daughter is moving to London?”.

“That is what I said. Your sister’s son-in-law is not even an engineer and his wife is just a degree holder and look at where they are now! No wonder your sister feels entitled to act in any manner she thinks is right!”.

Now Rajam was getting worked up too. Coming to think of it, her sister, who used to be a nobody in the family, did seem to be acting arrogant these days.  She picked up the phone to dial Mythili’s number, when the phone rang.

“Hello Akka, I called to thank Seema and Manju for all their help. There was no current supply that day and I was so overwhelmed with work – I don’t know what I could have done without their help.”, said Mythili.

Rajam recovered quickly. “You have given Seema a plastic lunchbox! After all my daughters did for you, is this how you repay them?”.

“A plastic lunchbox? There must have been some mix-up. I had kept that aside to give it to my sister-in-law. She has young kids and I thought she would find it useful. If someone is coming this way, ask Seema to send the lunchbox back. I will give her the stainless steel one I had kept aside for her” said Mythili. She still sounded nonplussed.

“It seems Renu’s husband has already moved to London. Renu wanted to keep this news a secret till things were confirmed.”, said Rajam as she replaced the telephone handset.

“Your sister was already full of pride after her other 2 children got jobs abroad. Now her behavior is going to be worse.”, said Seema. She was still unconvinced with Mythili’s explanation on the mix-up.

A tiny part of her brain seemed to be telling her that she was probably over-reacting – that she was responding to the unexpected news about her cousin than about an actual insult. She quickly shut the voice up.

Life seemed unfair. She was born to rich parents, was brought up with a sense of entitlement and never had to work even a single day. Things changed after her marriage. Her husband wasn’t poor, but then he wasn’t rich either. He was the worst kind of person an ambitious woman could have married – an honest government servant. And so, while Seema watched with disbelief and later mounting resentment, people who she considered beneath her, grew in status.  Every action and non-action by these traitors seemed offensive, calculated to insult her.

Seema wasn’t ready to let go of Mythili so easily. This deliberate insult had to be avenged. She was going to punish her aunt by ignoring her in public. Her first chance came when Mythili called her to invite her for her grandchild’s naming ceremony. She gave short and curt responses to Mythili’s questions and refused to attend the ceremony.

Mythili did not seem to notice. What is an insult, if it is not taken as one by the person who it is intended for? This vexed Seema further. The next opportunity presented itself soon. When Mythili went to visit her sister to invite her for her son’s wedding, Seema, who lived next door, slammed the door hoping Mythili noticed. Rajam, who was used to her daughter’s tantrums, asked Mythili to invite Seema personally for the wedding. But Mythili was in a hurry – she had left her daughter- the new mother and her grandchild home and had to rush back.

Rajam and Manju were beyond themselves. The family’s favourite was being insulted by a bloody nouveau riche. They decided to hit back by not attending the wedding.  The other siblings and their spouses were warned of consequences if any of them dared to attend the wedding.

Months went by – more attempts at reconciliation were ignored. Childhood friendships were broken. A personal misunderstanding gradually morphed into a family feud. More weddings and family functions were avoided. Slowly the invitations for the family functions stopped coming. 

Once in a while, Rajam thought about her sister and about the good times they had shared. In these rare instances, she openly blamed her daughter for the state of things. But when Seem and Manju yelled at her for taking her sister’s side, she was forced to shut up. This love and sympathy for her sister lasted only till she saw Mythili in other functions. Mythili did not seem to be suffering enough for the hurt she had caused. In fact she seemed to be doing much better than before and Rajam was forced.

Mythili was initially surprised and even found the reaction of her niece funny. By the time she realized that she had inadvertently caused a full-blown war, she had already hardened inside. She was now armed with the kind of strength that money gives to those who have lived a large part of their lives without it and who have come to terms with slights and insults meted out by the relatives.

“I am sorry about the loss of a sister and a friend – nothing else.”, she told someone months later.

Years went by. The relatives had by now stopped any attempts to reconcile the families. By this time irritation had been replaced by disgust and hatred and later by complete indifference. And time went on..

Gautam and Ashwini were looking at an old album.

“Who is this standing next to Kollu paati*?”, asked Ashwini.

“I don’t know. I have never seen these pictures myself. Paati might know.”, said Gautam.

“Paati, who is this standing next to Kollu paati? Your grandson does not seem to know.”, asked Ashwini.

Seema, who had just finished her daily dose of medicines and TV soaps, was thinking about taking a quick nap, when her newly married grandson’s young wife came in holding an album in her hand.

“Get me those glasses. I can hardly see without them”, said Seema. “This is my aunt – my mother’s sister”.

“Is she alive? Was she there for our wedding?”, asked Ashwini.

“I think she is alive. She wasn’t invited for the wedding though.”, said Seema.

“Why?” asked Ashwini.

“Our families have not spoken to each other for many years now”, said Seema.

“Sounds like there is a juicy story here. Tell me the story behind it”, said Ashwini.

“I don’t remember very well. I think it was about a plastic lunchbox” said Seema.

And as she said it out aloud for the first time in years, the stupidity of it all and all the years spent in hatred flashed in front of her. And she stood there wondering what had gone wrong all those years ago.

Its a jungle out here

The conversations start innocently enough and it is as though the drivers in Qatar have an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for interrogating passengers - especially women, who look distinctly Indian.

Driver : India?
Me : Yes (thinking, How many Europeans have you seen wearing a bindi and vibhuti on their foreheads on the streets of Doha)
Driver (if Indian, then it is mostly like a Malayali) : Malayalam?
Me : No- Tamil
After a few minutes of Silence,
D: Children in India
Me: No children (thinking, well it isn't a lie!)
D (Now he is concerned about me): No Children?!?!
Me pretending to have suddenly turned deaf and looking elsewhere hoping he stops his questioning..
D (now feeling the need to teach me to be a better person) : Husband in India?
Me : No, not married (like this is important information that the driver needs to stay alive)
The driver is now close to crashing his car and looks through the rear view mirror at me. Gives a completely idiotic smile - the kind that only Indian men who cannot keep themselves out of others' business are capable of. The kind that says - 'Prepare yourself, for I am now going to turn to your self-appointed guardian who, although will be in your life for about 15 minutes, will still tell you how Indian women should live!'

D: Why?
Me: Not interested
D: Why?
Me: Just like that


People were right - the country as such is mostly safe. Most people here are not locals and are here to work. Any kind of crime committed lands a person in prison or gets the person deported. So that keeps the people away from crime. But I am learning something new. There are some things that cannot be legally called a crime and are not punishable by law. For the first time in my life, I am forced to be very self-conscious.
By now, I am already used to walking into meeting rooms filled with men, with me often being the sole representative of my gender. I have never thought much of it. There exists a gender-less, ageless atmosphere within these rooms. Not so, when I walk outside on the road in the evening if  I have to buy something.

Imagine something like the opposite of a zoo, where it is you on display. There are hardly any women on the roads - the few that are to be seen are with their husbands or other men. So a woman walking alone is a rare sight and the men around never let go of such a rare sight. So these men stop their talk and stare at you. Staring cannot be called a crime, but when it is 100 pairs of eyes doing that, it sure does feel like one.

Things became a little more interesting a couple of months back. I was in a mood to make mistakes. I got into the front passenger seat of the taxi. After this usual conversation (refer above), the driver realized that he had a chance. For some reason he thought that if someone could change my mind, it was going to be him. So he started the groundwork.
D. How much is your salary Madam?
Me: Do you know that it is wrong to ask a person about his/her salary?
D: Really? I thought it was wrong to ask for the age.
Me:It is wrong to ask for the salary too.
D: Your Hindi is beautiful Madam.
Now I thought it was better to tell him my age, hoping that would put him off.
Next he asked me to give his phone a call, so that I could store his number. Maybe it something I had eaten that morning, but I was doing more and more foolish things and do as he says.
The following weekend, the phone rings twice and then stops - this, smack in the middle of the day and it is a number I do not recognize. When I looked at the history, I realized it was from this useless cab driver. I ignored it, but the thought kept gnawing me from inside. Why would the man call me? I was supposed to call him if I needed a ride somewhere!
The next evening, my usual cab driver did not come in the evening and after trying other numbers, I was forced to call the same guy. Imagine my surprise when the guy said he had been thinking about what I said all  that night! It psyched me completely, but I had no one to blame except myself!
The funniest part of all of it was when the guy told me that most men in the Middle East had dishonourable intentions and I thought - It takes one to know one!
I thought I had learnt my lesson, so I acted in what I thought was the right manner. My conversations now sounded like this:

Driver : India?
Me : Yes (Looking outside)
Driver : Malayalam?
Me : No- Tamil
After a few minutes of Silence,
D: Children in India
Me: Yes (Sorry Amma, but sometimes lying can also be dharma, if it saves a life or reduces stress!)
D:How many?
Me : 2 - 1 girl and 1 boy
D (now feeling that all is alright with the world) : Husband in India?
Me : Yes
D (slightly worried about me ignoring my motherly and wifely duties): They coming here?
Me: No, I will leave in a few weeks.
Poor driver ends up feeling bored and dejected because :
a. He cannot advise
b. He cannot flirt

My travails seem to have ended (with the drivers at least) with a final episode with a new Tamil cab driver, who thought he was being very smart when he asked me for my date of birth (instead of age). And if anybody reading this thought Rathi had learnt her lesson, I am sorry to say that she did not. She promptly gave the correct answer and then asked the driver why he wanted to know. However you will be happy to know that she gave him a piece of her mind after she had answered all the unnecessary questions truthfully :)
Harassment need not necessarily be physical. Violation of personal spaces can be harassing too and I am learning it the hard way here. After living most of my life trying not to get noticed, the attention I am getting now is becoming something of a pain in the posterior (see how polite I am?). I want to yell out and say 'I am too old for this you moron!'. And to those desperados who think that I have managed to stay single so far because I had not met him so far, I want to say - 'It is not you, it is me!!' if that will make them stop making these embarrassing passes at me!

Men who hate Women

Warning : This post is not about what you think. So no gender wars please!
It was on an international flight that I saw ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. I remembered reading the review of the movie (the Swedish original) about a year or so back online and remember being intrigued by the still of the heroine of the movie. The review I read was of the 3rd installment of the movie and in the movie still, the girl looked positively creepy with black face-paint and gelled hair standing upright! So when I saw the movie listed in the in-flight entertainment guide, I started watching it immediately. I was very impressed by part 1 and so after returning to India watched the remaining 2 parts of the movie.
Then a month ago, I was thinking of what to read next and for some reason, wondered if I could get hold of the Millennium Trilogy. It is an accepted theory that films in general are usually no match to the books they are based on (Godfather, being a universally accepted exception) and so I thought that if the films were good, the books had to be better. And again, for no particular reason, I thought that it was unlikely that my librarian would stock this series. So I tried the wrong method first and searched the internet for e-books. I got one set, but they were in Swedish and so initially dropped the idea of reading them in the near future. And then I struck gold when visiting my library once. I saw the 3rd part of the series and found to my delight that the library had all 3 parts. I started with part 1 and read a book every week and finished all 3 parts in 3 weeks!! And yes, the generally accepted theory is very much true !!
When you think of a heroine of a story, how do you imagine her to look like? Maybe it depends on the language and genre of the story. We may settle for the sacrificing angel  type who is like a human candle, giving her life to build the lives of others; or the avenging angel/woman spurned kind – the kind that is all docile and soft in the first half of the story and later turns to this one-person killing machine (think of the many many Sidney Sheldon novels and films like Khoon Bhari Maang). But irrespective of genre, a vast majority of the novels have one thing in common about the heroine – she is physically attractive. There are very very few books where the heroine is described as plain or bizarre looking. Whether guardian angel or avenging angel, most authors (predominantly male) like to create beautiful looking protagonists who use their beauty and brains to win over their opponents. The authors tell us repeatedly that these women use their sexuality as a weapon and I have never stopped wondering at the transparency of male fantasy!!
So picture a girl looking like this : Pale, skinny with very short hair, tattoos on her arms and neck, pierced nose and eyebrows – a person who stands out in a crowd for very different reasons from the other usual ‘heroines’. That is how Lisbeth Salander, the protagonist of the Swedish novel series – Millennium Trilogy is described as looking. She is scrawny, about 5 feet tall, extremely antisocial. With this most unlikely protagonist, author Stieg Larsson has created one of the most unforgettable and probably strongest woman-protagonists in history.
There is a hero in the series too – Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist who runs the monthly magazine called Millennium. The first part of the series – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (the Swedish title Män som hatar kvinnor – literally, men who hate women and hence the title of the post) introduces us to Blomkvist who has just lost a libel case involving a billionaire. He is sentenced to 10 months of prison when he is commissioned for a job by another businessman – Henrik Vanger, to solve the mystery of his niece who went missing 30 years ago. While his fate is not as bad as that of heroes in Vijayshanti movies, Blomkvist’s character is more a supporting role than the central one.
We are also introduced to Lisbeth Salander, who works as a detective/surveillance agent with a company called Milton security. Salander’s past is not explained fully, but it is obvious from the outset that this one is no normal woman. She behaves like a complete socio-path (and made me realize that I am not really one!) and has difficulty experiencing/showing any emotion. She is about 25 but looks like a 16 year old. She makes people in front of her uncomfortable by simply staring at them stone-faced!! But Salander has other qualities that make her suitable for Milton security – she has a photographic memory, is very meticulous with her work, and is a genius with computers. Details here and there indicate that she suffered a traumatic childhood and something that happened at the age of 12, that she calls ‘All the Evil’ changed her life completely. At the time of the story, she lives under the supervision of a government appointed guardian.
Although the first book is mostly about how Salander comes together with Blomkvist and helps him in solving the mystery of the missing niece, it also narrates some incidents in Salander’s life that prepare the readers for the rest of the story to unfold in the 2 sequels. There is a very disturbing and shocking incident in book 1 about an atrocity committed against Salander, but the way she gets back to the perpetrator made me jump up and dance with joy (figuratively of course, for I am a socially responsible person). I would highly recommend this action to be made the legal punishment for anyone committing such a crime!
Salander’s story takes centre-stage in parts 2 and 3 (The Girl who played with Fire and The Girl who kicked the Hornet’s nest). Two creepy and scary villains are introduced in part 2 – Zala and Niedermann. But the highlight of book 2, to me was a scene where Salander is caught unaware while researching on a murder victim, at a deserted country house, by two members of the villain’s gang. She manages to incapacitate both of them even though she is physically no match to either of them! I am normally bored with action sequences and fast-forward through most of them in films (and yes, that is why I don’t enjoy watching films in the theatre where I do not get to use a remote-control). In books, action sequences are worse, because I don’t like to be bothered to visualize them. But this sequence was a treat. I don’t remember how the film-version looked – it was a long time ago. The description in the book was mind-blowing and I was mentally cheering for the diminutive Salander.
Apart from Salander, there are many memorable characters in the series. Mikael Blomkvist is a ladies’ man who has numerous affairs but treats the women with respect. He is one of the people in the series who steadfastly stand by Salander throughout all her ordeals and against all odds. There is another female character equally powerful – Erika Berger – Blomkvist’s partner and lover, who supports Blomkvist throughout all his troubles.
The writer Stieg Larsson delivered the manuscripts of all 3 parts of the books to his publisher and suddenly died before seeing his works becoming best-sellers. It is very rare to see strong women characters in fiction (as I have said only about 1000 times in the past) and rarer still when the author is male. The Millennium series scores on two counts – the plot which is very engaging and the characters, that are extremely well-etched. After a long time, I had a very satisfying read.
P.S. I am now seeking out books by other Scandinavian writers, given that I really enjoyed the Danish series – The Killing, the Stieg Larson books and movies based on them, in Swedish and the 2 recent books I read/am reading by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo. These people sure know how to create mystery fiction!!