The 23rd session of Vaayanam, The Book Review Program conducted by the Literary Club of KSBC through Anagha as the resource person discusses Aarachar by K R Meera.The story is centered around the 22-year-old Chetna Gruddha Mullick, who belongs to a family of hangmen with a professional legacy dating back to the 4th century BC. As fate turns out, she inherits her father’s job and becomes the country’s first female executioner. This made her an overnight celebrity and a symbol of feminism.
Meanwhile, her father forces her to marry Sanjeev Kumar Mitra, a television journalist, whom she initially had a crush on and later detests to the core. He is a man of no morals who can go to any lengths to catch hold of a profitable story for his channel. Amidst this whirlpool of media frenzy, patriarchy and chaos, Chetna frantically struggles to find her ground and not succumb to her oppressive father and crafty lover.
The storyline is unconventional and the narration is stormy but wonderful and is bound to overwhelm the reader with several intense emotions. It’ll make you cry at times, empower you at other times and makes you ponder seriously over certain instances. There are even times when you’ll feel so suffocated that you can not bear to read another word. Nevertheless, this is a must-read Malayalam literary work.
The novel is filled with an immense amount of stories of Gruddha Mullick ancestors. It is lovely to learn a bit about their history, but there are so many of them in the book that I eventually lost track and interest. These historical stories, but, are interlinked with the present storyline and thus makes the narration gradual.