Sacred Talons - Book Review

Guruswamy, a 48 yr old bearded man with sharp and handsome features, is the protagonist of Sacred Talons by Aa Madhavan, translated from Tamil by V Ramakrishnan. Simple meals, temple visits, time well spent with books, observing people as they go about their activities, gazing at the sky, the Sun, the birds, the coconut grove and the market hidden in its copse make his daily routine. Reckless extravagance and excessive self-indulgence by his grandfather and father not only leave him with a lean inheritance but with a sense of revulsion for a rich and pompous lifestyle and petty pleasures. Sans issues and his wife dead for years, the joy of family life is also a distant and fuzzy memory for him.

The tenants who stay on his land truly care for him and constitute his adopted family. This family includes Parvathi, the maid, Ravi, the painter, Vengu the singer, Pappan the tinsmith and last but not the least Velappan, an employee at the dairy cooperative and his wife, Raani. For more than first one-third of the book, Guruswamy is at the centre, like the Sun and the other characters merely move around him like planets, basking in his benevolence. But times change, socio-political scenario shifts, suppressed desires resurface, morals crumble, vices win and people falter. How the lives of this ascetic-like Guruswamy and his acolytes are ruffled up unfolds at a steady pace in the book's latter half. 

Set against the backdrop of pre-independent and newly independent India, in the city of Trivandrum, the goings-on in Sacred Talons make us wonder about the opinions we hold, how our perspectives shift over time leaving us either enlightened or blindfolded. Should the brahminy kite be viewed as Lord Vishnu's mount as per and be revered or just be seen as a bird of prey? The denouement raises this question, clearly substantiating the choice of the title (not an exact equivalent of the Tamil original title, Krishna Parunthu). At its end, we are left with a question to tackle, something similar to the ‘what came first - chicken or egg?' - what changed first - man or his situation?

A special mention for the translation that is not just lucid and readable but intelligent too for giving us readers a title that beautifully mirrors the novel's crux. With a slow, meandering first half and an ‘up the ante’ second half, this layered novel with complex characters surprised me. I enjoyed reading this. 

A little about the author from the translator's note

The author inherited his father's business, a utensil shop at Chaalai bazaar in Trivandrum and wrote Tamil stories set against the backdrop of the market and its immediate neighborhood. His narratives focus on Tamil people in Trivandrum and his language is a curious mix of Malayalam and Tamil. 

Favorite Lines 

“How quickly days managed to bury past memories! Yesterday's heaviness cannot be found in the heart today. By tomorrow, its intensity will be completely gone until it can be found no more. Every passing day washes over us like a breeze. Perhaps days should be renamed as breeze.”

Endnotes

I read the author's novel On A River's Bank, translated by M Vijayalakshmi a few years back. I liked Sacred Talons more than this novel. The year 2026 began with reading a collection of stories by D Ravikumar translated by V Ramakrishnan, the translation left me happy as a reader there too. Here is hoping to read more works in Tamil translated by V Ramakrishnan. And a big shout out to TNTB & ESC initiative that ensures many important works in Tamil are translated and get a wider readership. I am always excited to see the Gopuram/temple tower symbol on covers of books and happy that many such books have a place in my bookshelf.