Insects are just like you and me

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except some of them have wings. Quite a mouthful isn’t it?But it is the title that first caught my interest. And also that is was from the Blaft stables, whose Tamil pulp fiction collection I totally loved! I am glad I didn’t suppress the impulse, cause Kuzhali Manickavel’s collection of stories is, for the lack of a better word, delicious! She is Kafka meets Roald Dahl meets Tamil pulp fiction!Most of her stories are centered around ECR in Tamilnadu,India and the language is often vernacular mixed with Kuzhali’s poetical prose. Some of the stories are hilarious and bizarre. And there are others, where beneath the matter of fact tone and deadpan humor lies great sensitivity. Kuzhali is extremely insightful and has a wonderful way with words. Her characters say the weirdest and funniest things but there is always a sadness lurking beneath. Be it the girl who writes letters to Sylvia Plath about positive reinforcement, or the woman writing eulogies to insects in her jar.Her stories catch your attention , with their crazy titles like “Jam that bread of life” and most stories read like a retelling of dreams, with the characters and their “unphrases” hopping off in delightful tangents. Kuzhali is a wizard with words – “sandcastles eaten by the sea” is a lovely phrase I picked up from here among many others. My favorites in the collection were the very first one “Godlet” which was very cheeky and nice, “Blue” was crisp and poignant, “The Butterfly Assasin” was beautiful prose and of course the lovely “The Dynamics of windows”. You can read the last one here.

This was my first book for the Orbis Terrarum Challenge.

P.S : Kuzhali has a hilarious appendix section in one of the stories explaining the origin and etymology of the term “plucking” from its Tamil equivalent which had me rolling on the floor laughin for 5 minutes straight!

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