Favourite Book Characters (MSW)

Review by Athira T, CB.SW.P2MSW19001

Favourite Character: Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina

Oru Sankeerthanam Pole – Perumbadavam Sreedharan (1993)
“A person with a signature of God on his heart”. This will be first sentence that will stuck and haunt our heart when we read the novel. “ Oru Sankeerthanam Pole” centres on 21 days in Dostoevsky’s life when he was writing ‘The Gambler’. It was a particularly trying period in the Russian’s life as he was heavily in debt. In addition, he would have had to pay a heavy penalty if he failed to complete his book within the stipulated period. Perumbadavam Sreedharan sir mainly focussed on the difficult stage in the Russian’s author’s life and wrote a moving novel that has stood the test of time.
The character I have chosen is Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina shortly Anna, one among the central characters of the novel. She was in need of a job after the sudden demise of her father, where she has to take care of her mother and siblings. The character is not a person who rates/loves someone with outer beauty, financial status, material things etc. She is 20 years old and calm, quite, motivated in nature. She was so happy to know that the famous Russian author Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky needs a stenographer for his next novel “The Gambler”. Dostoevsky i is a Gambler who lost everything because of his insane gambling. He lost his wife, brother and father and that lead him to a disease of extreme fits and he is short tempered too. At times, he used to bark at Anna, but she could analyse him and understood him so clearly because from his all life instances, we can see no one was there with him in his toughest and hardest situations, at least to hold the hands and to give the hope. But being a stenographer, she accepted Dostoevsky as he is and tried to understand more. He is around forty years old, at time we can see Anna tries to change his bad thoughts on himself by making him motivated, helps him to understand how valuable his words and works is etc. She was a rain that brought him sense of belongingness and care. She herself defined Dostoevsky as “A continent where God and Ghost Governs same time”. But she described his works as “A person with a signature of God on his heart”. Anna was the first person after his wife, in his life to hear and listen his life instances without any prejudice or pre judgmental attitude. Whenever he thinks about his wife’s demise, she was there to console him and to bring back him to world of “words”. Anna read most of his works, and she is a great inspirer of him later ends up in Divine Love. In many situations she lifted up him and consoled him. One day when he lost everything in Gambling, she didn’t scold him rather told one day we will win. He proposed his love through narrating a story for writing a new novel, he started the story line by saying the hero of the story is a aged artist who falls in love with a 20 year old girl. And he asked “Is this possible?”. Anna’s answer was “yes” because she told that the character fell in love not with the outer beauty, financial status or anything other than the person is a human being. A girl who can love the person’s inner beauty will always stays in their life. Afterwards, she realized that she is falling herself for him despite of any material things. This shows Anna as a person she was not fed up with his insane thoughts and gambling, but she helped and lifted from his all circumstances.

Review by Seetha Lakshmi A P, CB.SW.P2MSW19028

Favourite character: Celia

As You Like It
“As you like it” is one of the classic plays of the classic play of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare is called as England’s National poet. He was an English play write, poet, and actor. He is regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist….
As you like it is a pastoral comedy, happy mirages, induced laughter, and love. The play was first performed at Walton House in 1603 and it was first published in 1623. As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s happy ending plays, the main theme of the play is Love. Some of the important characters of the play are Duck Senior, Duke Fredric, TouchStone, Rosalind’s, Celia, Orlando, Oliver, etc…
According to me one of the touching character in the play is Celia. Celia is one of the important character of the play. The play has 2 settings – The court of Duke and the Forest of Arden. The Story Starts with the Banishing of Duke Senior by his own brother Duke Fredric, to the Forest of Arden, where Duke seniors daughter Rosalind stays with Celia the daughter Duke Fredric in the Court of the Duke. When Rosalind and Celia grow, Duke Fredric tells Rosalind to leave the court and join with her father in the forest of Arden, where Celia follows her, both of them disguising themselves as poor shepherd boy and girl. In the Forest of Arden where the girls find Duke Senior living the life of a robin hood and also finds the love of their life.
The character of Celia is beautiful, silent, reserved, attractive, intelligent, reserved, conventional and she also has a bright sense of humor. Celia is more intelligent hanging out with Rosalind. She feels that both of them together can achieve anything in the world. What made Celia my favorite character ?…..is because of her love and friendship towards her sister Rosalind. Even though she had all pleasure and wealth at the Duke’s Court, she threw it away in love for her sister, As in Ramayana where Lakshmana goes his brother Rama to exile. Celia is in some way the mirror that Shakespeare holds up to the modern-day audience o to show the depth of friendship sisterhood and love. According to me Celia too is an ideal heroine of the play, how shows us the importance and depth of true friendship and love… As the saying goes A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Review by Athira E A, CB.SW.P2MSW19009

Favourite character: SUHARA

Balyakalasakhi……Childhood friend…The word itself seeks to our nostalgia.. And nostalgia is something that touches every human heart. Balyakalasakhi is a Malayalam romantic tragedy novel written by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer. Published in 1944, it is considered by many as Basheer’s best work. I’ve always wondered why it is that Basheer is a favourite of all Malayalis, regardless of age or social status. Now I’ve got the answer. It lies in his language, simple and having the touch of countryside air. The wonderful mix of local dialect and the standard one, thus making it readable for any class of readers.And then there are the characters.. Every character of Basheer is taken from the midst of us, that is, the Kerala society of his times.The story revolves around Majeed and Suhra, who are in love with each other from childhood. By Basheer’s own admission, the story is largely autobiographical.
this story is so real that it has blood on its sides. It doesn’t offer a pleasant ending. It is not a pleasant story at all. By the time you turn the last page, your heart will be heavy. You’ll be filled with blankness. Majeed’s father was rich once, so could send him to a school in the distant town, although he was not very good at studies. Suhra’s father on the other hand had trouble making both ends meet. Even then he wanted to send his daughter, who was good at studies to the school. But after her father’s death, all her hopes of further studies were ruined. Majeed begs his father to sponsor Suhra’s education, but he refuses.
Majeed leaves home after a skirmish with his father, and wanders over distant lands for a long time before returning home. On his return, he finds that his family’s former affluence is all gone, and that his beloved Suhra has married someone else. He is grief struck at the loss of love, and this is when Suhra turns up at his home. She is a shadow of her former self. The beautiful, sunshiny, vibrant Suhra of old is now a woman worn out by life, battered hard by a loveless marriage to an abusive husband. Majeed commands her, Suhra don’t go back! and she stays.
Majeed leaves home once again, but this time with plans on his mind. He needs to find a job, to ward off poverty, and thus he reaches a North Indian city. He finds work as a salesman but one day he meets with a bicycle accident in which he loses a leg. And he is informed that he’s fired from his job. He again sets off on a job quest knocking at every door, wearing off his soles. He dreams of Suhra back home waiting for him to return. One day. His mother writes to him that Suhra is sick and subsequently of Suhra’s death.
While reading I saw Suhra, standing beside the window with eyes filled with tears for her beloved. I saw Suhra,the one who had the courage to leave her abusive husband, a courage that many women doesn’t have even in the present days.. In Suhra, I saw the soul of an empowered woman or rather a shadow of one.. I saw Majeed, who couldn’t leave her but had to because of his circumstances. I saw him leaving her the second time, only this time not to come back. And she never complained. The only time she did was when she told him, you could’ve written. I saw Majeed telling Suhra not to go back. And her response. And I wept. I do not know why. But I did. It was very difficult to read this with clear eyes. Every word clouded my eyes. And mind could do little to stop it from raining. Balyakalasakhi is not just a novel. It is the mix of events that each of us might have experienced at least once in the past. Every character stands so close to me that can touch them with our hands. Every dialogue haunts me ,bringing back things from the past.

Review by Emin Elsa Mathew, CB.SW.P2MSW19014

Favourite character: Najeeb

Aadujeevitham

“A way to come out of our sorrow is to listen to the stories of those who endure situation worse than ours” these are the lines of Benyamin from the book I have recently read -Aadujeevitham. Aadujeevitham is a 2008 Malayalam novel about an abused migrant worker in Saudi Arabia written by Benyamin. This novel creates the real life of a gulf Malayali’s who worked in the desert. This is one such book which is full of life and made tears in my eyes. The story was a real-life experience, not created. But, author mixed lot of thoughts and imagination for the better reading. The protagonist of the story is Najeeb. There is much character along with the hero including Hakkim, Hameed and Arab. My favourite character in this novel is Najeeb.

The story revolves around the life of Najeeb, a sand miner in Kerala, dreams of better times. After a long wait in Bombay, he lands in Riyadh one evening with a companion. There’s no one to pick them up at the airport. It’s night when they meet their destiny, a shabby Arab in an old pickup. They journey almost endlessly, from bright city to dark desert, from expectation to despair. Najeeb is separated from his companion and dumped rudely in a goat farm in the middle of the Saudi desert. From now on, he will live with his boss, his Arab, and a “scary figure”, a stinking, unkempt, long-bearded fellow who had “matted hair like that of a savage” and “the dirtiest of Arab clothes. Najeeb realises his dreams are set to fade away, and yet he has hope, faith.

His job was to herd 700 goats owned by his employer who would watch him through binoculars to make sure that he didn’t try and escape. The Arab lived in a small shed in the desert while Najeeb was made to sleep outside. He had to eat stale kuboos. He would use goat’s milk to wet the kuboos and eat it. The goats were not bathed and the stench would be there in the milk as well. But he had nothing else to eat. While the Arab would take a bath, he wouldn’t allow Najeeb to use any water to bathe or clean himself. A long shift-dress was his only garment and he was never given anything else into which he could change. His hair had also grown as he was not allowed to trim or shave it. And he was not allowed to see whatever the boss owned.

One night, when his Arab and the brother had left for a wedding, Najeeb was all alone. Eagerly waiting for such a moment to escape, he ran out of the place. He didn’t stop and just kept running. On the way, he saw another Malayali, in another goat-rearing area, living in the same deplorable conditions as him. Only after he came near and whispered to me in Malayalam that he wants to escape. The moment when Najeeb meets the other Malayali is among the most poignant moments in the novel. After running for one and half days, he saw a road. He stood there for hours trying to stop one vehicle. Many vehicles passed by and finally one stopped. An Arab was driving it. He was good-hearted and dropped him in Riyadh. Finally landed in the capital city of Saudi Arabia and managed to find a Malayali restaurant. They gave him food and a new dress. After two years, he was able to take a bath, shave and cut my hair.

Some of Najeeb’s relatives were there in Riyadh. After getting in touch and meeting them, he surrendered to the country’s legal system, the only option for migrants like him who have lost documents like passport and visa and have been cheated by agents. Najeeb was put in jail for 10 days. For a man who’d undergone such brutality in harsh conditions, jail was pleasant. Finally, the big day came and Najeeb returned home. He met his family members. Najeeb resumed working as a daily wage labourer. After two years, he was given a free visa to Bahrain by his brother-in-law.

Aadujeevityham is not just a novel it doesn’t need the justification of being based on real events and could stand well enough on its fictional own. Its clear enough that whatever it is based on an individual experience, or the impression of million who have experienced some of what Najeeb lived through reflect real conditions and experiences.

Review by Anagha S Kumar,CB.SW.P2MSW19005

Favourite character: Agustus Waters

The fault in ours stars by John Green is an emotional and yet fun journey through the lives of two teenagers who are diagnosed with cancer. Through this journey we travel through the thick and thin of their moments together and we feel attached to their story and characters, it is hard to find something not to love about them. for this character review i would like to describe the character of Augustus Waters who is the male lead in the story, he has a cancer which affects his bone and is the member of a group called “kids with cancer”, where he meets this beautiful girl called Hazel and from there their life changes forever.

From multiple points of view Augustus plays out his own reality. This is the reason there are two adaptations of his character inside the novel. The main adaptation we meet is the façade called Augustus Waters. Named, pompously, after the primary Roman ruler, Augustus plays a solid, sure, entertaining, and enchanting kid. He constantly fetishizes his own self importance. He is persuaded that the significance of life is being brave, leaving a respectable inheritance, greatly affecting mankind. This adaptation of Augustus bumbles over determined monologs in the recreation center. He over-plans Dutch themed picnics, down to the last horrendous detail, only for stage like impact. He is bamboozled by pompous analogies of his own development, similar to when he forfeits himself in a computer game by bouncing on a projectile so as to spare kids.

As his malignancy returns, be that as it may, the entirety of this exhibition falls away. What remains is Gus, a high school kid in Indianapolis who used to be a star competitor and now ends up kicking the bucket from malignant growth. Gus is the kid his folks have consistently observed. Truth be told, Hazel just learns his moniker is “Gus” since it’s what his folks call him. Be that as it may, Hazel doesn’t adore him any less for being Gus. A remarkable opposite: She begins calling him Gus as opposed to Augustus simply after they’re personally acquainted with each other, when Hazel knows all parts of him and not simply the performed form she initially meets. She sees that, underneath the sentimental signals and dramatic affectedness, Gus is a sweet, mindful, and justifiably frightened seventeen-year-old person. What more, it’s his adoration for Hazel Effortlessness that encourages Augustus its alright to be Gus. As he weakens genuinely, he’s compelled to face the way that he’ll bite the dust without taking any kind of action humankind everywhere sees as unprecedented, and a more profound otherworldly change happens. As a result of Hazel, he comes to understand that neglecting to accomplish something unprecedented doesn’t approach being unimportant.

Throughout the novel the genuine Gus uncovers himself through the most significant offer of his Augustinian partner: the demonstration of putting a cigarette in his mouth. The cigarette analogy fills in as a connection that ties the two unique characters. That is on the grounds that the cigarette uncovers something contrary to what it is intended to extend: Augustus needs for the cigarette to speak to his authority over what could murder him, however it is a gadget he depends on when feeling generally helpless, most like Gus. He gets for the cigarette now and again of vulnerability, similar to when he initially meets Hazel or on board the plane, when he frightful of flying.

Review by Jerry George, CB.SW.P2MSW19018

Favourite Character: Santiago

Santiago is a shepherd boy who has got his own dreams despite of not interested in what his parents wanted him to be in future. He wishes to see the world around by traveling and find the treasure in the pyramids. But even though he has a strong mind to fullfill his dream he was little reluctant untill he met the King if Salem Melchizedek, then he set apart his journey while in the desert he meets Fatima whom he loves most but in order to fulfill his dream he had to leave her and he is trying to understand the mysterious mysteries of the nature with the help of the Alchemist. The realization of the nature and the magical mysteries of the universe is marvelously explained through the curiosity of the shepherd boy Santiago. One or other way we too have to be like Santiago, as the character shows everything has destined and everything has got a purpose and there is a time to fulfill this purpose, with great trust in God and following the true whisperings from our own heart we can achieve our dreams.

Review by Arathy Prasad, CB.SW.P2MSW19006

Favourite character: Khan Bahadhoor Pookoya Thangal

SMARAKASHILAKAL
I read this book year back. For this book review I took one of the best classic of modern literature “Smarakashilakal” written by Punathil Kujabdulla in 1977. It is considered as the best work of Punathil sir, affectionately we called him as Kunjikka.
This Novel speaks about “Death”. Death is the central reality of this work and its really tells the story of life. Through the central character, Punathil sir realistically remembers the end of the life and beginning of the another. The Novel tells the story of Khan Bahadhoor Pookoya Thangal who has the head of the Muslim family, called Arackal. The story was woven around a mosque and its surroundings. Novel portrays a Muslim family life, and Pookoya Thangal lead as a feudal land lord. One of the best and attracting character in this Novel is him. Through the novel it was understood that Thangal was very caring of the people who are dependent on him. The incident that Thangal is taking care of a Hindhu woman Neeli is an example for that. This character of him makes him more attractive. And also he feels like a patriarch to the entire Muslim population of Karakkad Village and he always considers the people working in his home as his family members. The specialty was that he led on an ordered life.
The second part of the novel portrays that after the death of Thangal, the ordered life that he built collapsed and his house was taken over by “Pattalam Ibrayi” He is another main character. Who used to work for Thangal and also suspected to be elicit son of Thangal’s father. “Kunjali” was the adopted son of Thangal was driven out of hose because of hatred shared of Thangal’s ife “Attabee” and Pattalam Ibrayi. Kujali Was considered as “ Harami” by Attabee because he was born to a Hindhu girl called Neeli who died after his birth. Readers like us, don’t know who is the father of Kunjali. But Thangal was deeply attached with Kunjali and brings hi up as his own son. At the end of the story Thangal’s daughter “Pookunjubee” gets killed due to the heartlessness of Pattalam Ibrayi.
For my understanding every character has equal importance and they reflected some aspect of the social set up. I felt like the central character Khan Bahadhoor Pookoya Thangal attracts me a lot because he was a mixture of Love, Dignity and Benevolence. The novel shed me some light on thoughts and beliefs of Malabar Muslim Society of Kerala in an around Independence. The novel has real life content. In an interview Punathil sir said that the most of the character in this novel were real life people he personally knew.
For this novel he has won many recognitions including Kendra Sahithya Academy Award and Kerala Sahithya Academy Award etc….
The best Literature and the one of the best character in Malayalam Modern classic….