Cool Cut

by Sharad P. Paul

In Unblinking lyrical prose, Sharad P. Paul brings alive the fabulous politics of caste, gender and language in south india. But Cool Cut, finally, is a human tale of painful severance and soaring, joyful redemption.

Genres: Fiction

161 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Luci · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much better than I expected picking this up from a random book library!

[Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tale about a teenage boy in India who is kidnapped by eunuchs and made one of them. He must live with his captors in the feminine gender role that is expected of eunuchs in India. He never expresses regret about the physical change or his new gender role, although he was unhappy about having been kidnapped and assaulted. (This plot line is controversial because there is public disagreement about exactly how Indian eunuchs come to join their societies: whether they are born that way, whether they choose to be castrated, or whether they are kidnapped. Some people claim that the allegation of kidnapping is inaccurate and consider it a slur against eunuch communities.) In the subplot, two of his childhood friends, a boy and girl, fall in love. The sentences are clipped quite short, Hemingway-esque. A re-read for me.

"Very few people, even today, know about the Kaveri River porpoises. These look like dolphins, except they have a blunter nose and look rather like mini whales....It is said that if you see porpoises playing in the Kaveri, you can be sure that no demons or monsters are about, as the porpoises will drive them away." (p. 22)

More information is posted to Disruptive Dissertation.

[Glen Gerard · Rating 5 out of 5]

brutal ; yet poetic ; sharad b paul ; intertwines parallel stories with smoothness in his writing ..one of the best books I have ever read till date .
you will really fall in love with the kite flyers ;)